|
| Advanced Feats: The Witch's Brew - Collected Reviews |
« View previous topic :: View next topic » |
| Author |
Message
|
| Sigfried |
 Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:35 pm Post subject: Advanced Feats: The Witch's Brew - Collected Reviews |
 |
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
Hi folks,
This is simply a collection of reviews for Advanced Feats: The Witch's Brew.
These are posted by yours truly and collected from various locations. These reviews are not edited other than formatting so they are readable in this forum.
If you wish to post your own review, you are by all means welcome and encouraged to do so. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
| Sigfried |
| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:40 pm Post subject: Ben from Troll in the Corner - 4 of 5 Stars |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
Reviewer: Ben
Website: Troll in the Corner
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Advanced Feats: The Witch’s Brew by Sigfried Trent offers an in depth look at the new Witch class as it’s available in the Advanced Player’s guide for Pathfinder. Trent and crew introduce 30 new feats designed with the Witch PCs in mind, as well as a discussion on what the Witch can do as a class, and several suggested builds.
Witches are somewhat new territory for me. I’ve got the APG and I’ve read through the class and been interested in them, but I’ve never played one or run a game with a Witch in the party. One thing that did immediately stand out for me with the Witch was that as helpful and interesting as their familiars are, they can also be a danger to the Witch. Losing your familiar hurts!
This PDF starts of with an examination of the Witch class and what bearing they’ll have on your party. It’s worth the read as Trent has put a lot of thought into this and gives an easy to follow overview of the Witch which goes a bit above and beyond what’s covered in the Advanced Players guide. I finished this section knowing how I’d implement a Witch in a game, rather than having a few interesting but vague ideas about the class. This is a good thing because the APG left me a little vague on how I would run one.
Now we come to the 30 additional feats for Witches which makes up the core of this document. On the whole, I think they’re well crafted and will be immediately useful to players wanting to dabble in a little familiar based spell casting and hexing. In fact, the biggest strength in these new feats are those that address the Witch’s familiar. There are a ton of interesting feats which make the Witch’s familiar into more of an asset in combat and less of a heavily guarded, mobile spellbook. Familiar Concentration, where your familiar can concentrate on a spell for you, Familiar Range Extension, up to 100 miles of contact, and Hexing Familiar which does what it says all stand out for me.
There are other stand out feats. Infer Spell which allows you to figure out a spell based on how it’s triggered by a magic item is a fun. Usurp Spell allows you to steal control of a spell cast by another.
As with my previous review of the Secrets of the Alchemist, there are a few feats which could, depending on how you and your group handle them, be game breaking. Extra Familiar, which allows for an additional familiar which you control could be one of these. Familiar Training, which allows you to share your applicable feats with your familiar is another. I’m not really prepared to take huge points off for this though because they could also work very well in your campaign. It’s more of how they are implemented and used. Some may not find them flawed at all.
After the new feats we are presented with three character builds for the Witch, following the character from 1st through 20th level.The Arch Witch is someone who specializes in dominating other spellcasters. The White Witch build (which I cannot help but nickname The Glinda) is a Witch who specializes in healing and helping, while punishing those who are evil. The last build is the Wicked Witch (or the Alfaba?) who is just you think.
All of the builds are good, and in themselves offer even more insight into this class. Keep in mind that they do rely on the feats presented in this document.
If you want to expand on the new classes presented by Piazo, specifically the Witch in this case, certainly pick this up. It will be well worth the read and the new feats are for the most part well done and balanced. 4 out of 5 stars.
Last edited by Sigfried on Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:03 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Sigfried |
| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:45 pm Post subject: The Vorpal Spork - Unrated mini review |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
Reviewer: The Vorpal Spork
Website: The Vorpal Spork
Rating: Unrated
I just got a chance to read the newest Pathfinder supplement from the hardworking Kobolds at Open Design. Like the last one (the Alchemist), it has 3 builds and 30 feats. It also gives the player a different prospective on the class from what is presented in the Handbook. I particularly liked the Wicked Witch build with the Evil Eye hex and Craft Magic Tattoo feats. If you are playing a Witch from the Advanced Players Guide you should get this supplement. But as with the last Advanced Feat supplement you should discuss any feats you take with your game master.
I received a free copy of this product for review purposes.
Last edited by Sigfried on Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:23 am; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Sigfried |
| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:47 pm Post subject: Roberto M from Stargazer's World - No Rating |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
Reviewer: Roberto M
Website: Stargazer's World
Rating: Unrated
The fine folk at Open Design, i.e. Kobold Quarterly, are at it again, producing excellent third party products that support the Pathfinder RPG, specifically the classes in the Advanced Players Guide. I received the second installment of their Advanced Feats series, Advanced Feats: The Witch’s Brew, this time dealing with the new Witch class from the Advanced Players guide. I reviewed their previous Advanced Feats product, the one for the Alchemist class, in a prior post, and have been looking forward to the next one ever since. Let me tell you they did not disappoint.
I must admit that out of all the classes in the Advanced Players guide the Witch was perhaps the one I was less interested in. I remember the old Witch NPC class for AD&D 1st edition that appeared in an old Dragon Magazine and for me that write up defined the Witch in terms of D&D, I have not been particularly enamored by other versions and I pretty much ignored the class even during playtesting. But once the book came out I discovered a versatile spellcasting class with lots of flavor and role playing opportunities, needless to say, when I got the PDF for Advanced Feats: The Witch’s Brew I was excited.
The review copy PDF is a 14 page document, 12 of those actual rules. The rules are divided into three parts, an overview of the Witch, 30 new feats for the class, and three possible builds. Last time around my major gripe was the page background and some of the art, this time the book has an excellent cover illustration (reused in the book’s introduction) of a non-traditional Witch and page backgrounds of magical circles very fitting with the book’s motif. Layout is clear and easy two read in typical two column style. A big improvement!
But what about the rules you say? The author, Sigfried Trent, continues the format used in the previous book. The overview discusses general information about the class. Some might seem obvious to the experienced gamer, but he does bring up some very important things to consider in a very succinct way. The next section, 30 new feats for the Witch is, as in the previous installment in the series, the larger portion of the book, and it has a great mix of feats. Many of them usable for other spellcasting classes so don’t discount this book as just useful for the Witch. The feats that enhance the Witch’s class abilities are very well thought of, feats that augment a Witch’s familiar (which are different from the familiars of Wizards and Sorcerers) and that improve their counterspelling, for example.
Some feats have commentary accompanying them that give some notion of the reasoning behind them or details about the rules. Some of my favorite feats are Craft Magic Tattoo (I remember a similar feat from 3rd edition, but can’t recall the source right now) which is a cool idea even if some of the rule wording had me rereading it. Feats which facilitate role playing, like Extra Familiar, or Serve Two Masters, which diversify the Witch’s powers but at the same time create possible complications or storytelling opportunities are always a plus in my book.
Some feats, like Seduction (skill bonuses and a bonus to the DC of Charm spells against those attracted to the Witch) show the author’s ability to think outside the box, break some preconceptions and tread new ground. I love that these feats are not merely new mechanics but role playing opportunities, a definite win in my book.
The final section, the builds, is excellent. It covers some classic archetypes, the White Witch, the Wicked Witch, and the concept of power hungry Arch Witch are all succinctly presented, well planned and are useful lot only as a guide for the potential player, but as blueprints for NPCs. I don’t know if that’s what the author was going for but I kept thinking of the book Wicked and playing songs from the musical in my mind.
This second installment of the Advanced Feats series was excellent; I dare say an improvement on the previous installment, which was already a great book. The price, $3.95, is right for the content, which will be useful to any player or GM of the Pathfinder RPG. Do yourself a favor and pick up this book.
Looking forward to the next one… Here is hoping they do a print compilation of all these books when they are all out!
Last edited by Sigfried on Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:36 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Sigfried |
| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:50 pm Post subject: Jerall from tenletter - 3.5 of 5 stars |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
Reviewer: Jerall
Website: Tenletter
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Open Design has teamed up with the Netbook of Feats to launch a new line of Pathfinder RPG supplements: Advanced Feats. I was fortunate enough to get hold of a review copy of the second product from the line: The Witch’s Brew by Sigfried Trent.
The Witch’s Brew follows the same format as Secrets of the Alchemist: an explanation of the Advanced Feats series; an examination of the Witch as a class, from both a mechanical and flavour perspective; 30 new feats for PFRPG; and a look at 3 possible character builds.
The Feats: Though the feats are witch-themed, few of them are actually witch-specific. In other words, the feats are available to non-witch characters that can otherwise meet the prerequisites of the feats. Normally, I’d consider this a positive, but this time it negatively affected my reading of the text. The witch, compared to the wizard, receives a very limited number of feats. So, the feats in The Witch’s Brew had me thinking more about wizards, rather than witches. That said, I thought that most of the feats were well thought out and presented. There are a few that wouldn’t fit into every game, but that’s to be expected with any collection of feats – even the core feats. Here are some of my favourites:
Since 3.0, I’ve experimented with every type of specialised wizard – except for the abjurer, specifically anti-mage abjurers. I have always thought that counterspell builds are too campaign-specific and the available mechanics tend to punish, rather than reward, players for focusing on counterspells. Trent presents a series of counterspell-based feats that makes the counterspell caster look more attractive. Lower level feats increase the reward for successfully countering a spell, while the highest level feat allows casters to counterspell as an immediate action. I think that these feats go a long way towards improving the viability of a counterspell build and I might finally get around to playing an abjurer.
Nearly a third of the feats presented focus on familiars. I was a big fan (and abuser) of polymorph and superior familiar fu in 3.X. Changes in PFRPG, however, forced familiar-focused characters to rethink their strategies and builds. Recently, I’ve noticed a trend to slowly start (re-)introducing options for familiar-focused characters, taking care not to repeat past mistakes. I like Trent’s collection of familiar feats, which makes familiars more attractive, especially to multi-classed casters, allowing players to once again explore the teachings of familiar fu. Added bonus: you can now have a toad that cackles maniacally. Who wouldn’t want one of those?
My co-author argued that some of the familiar feats were too powerful. I disagree, because the costs/effort involved in keeping your familiar alive should help balance things out – I like buying cute little familiar accessories of protection and resistance. Of course, this is all based on play style.
There were a few other feats that stood out (Touch Mastery, Mass Effect Spell, Improved Caster Level, Discriminating Spell), but there’s one in particular that I’d like to discuss:
Soul Mate is a new teamwork feat that grants characters a near-supernatural awareness of each other. Long-time readers may remember my disasterous experiments with romantically-linked PCs, but this feat has inspired me to give it a try once again. Alternatively, I might try applying this feat to twins. I’ll let you know what happens.
The not so nice: Last time, I mentioned that I didn’t much like the look and feel of the Secrets of the Alchemist. The Witch’s Brew doesn’t suffer from any of those problems – much better – but, unfortunately, there were quite a few rather bad typos and errors here and there.
Final opinion: Though both Secrets of the Alchemist and The Witch’s Brew have several non-class-specific feats, nearly all of the feats in Secrets made me think about the Alchemist, while Brew didn’t have me thinking about the Witch. The feats in Brew still manage to get the creative processes going, but not the witchey ones. Arbitrary score: 3.5 out of 5.
Last edited by Sigfried on Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Sigfried |
| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:51 pm Post subject: Ben Gerber from DriveThruRPG.com - 4 of 5 stars |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
Reviewer: Ben Gerber
Website: DriveThruRPG
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Advanced Feats: The Witch's Brew by Sigfried Trent offers an in depth look at the new Witch class as it’s available in the Advanced Player’s guide for Pathfinder. Trent and crew introduce 30 new feats designed with the Witch PCs in mind, as well as a discussion on what the Witch can do as a class, and several suggested builds.
Witches are somewhat new territory for me. I've got the APG and I've read through the class and been interested in them, but I've never played one or run a game with a Witch in the party. One thing that did immediately stand out for me with the Witch was that as helpful and interesting as their familiars are, they can also be a danger to the Witch. Losing your familiar hurts!
This PDF starts of with an examination of the Witch class and what bearing they’ll have on your party. It’s worth the read as Trent has put a lot of thought into this and gives an easy to follow overview of the Witch which goes a bit above and beyond what’s covered in the Advanced Players guide. I finished this section knowing how I’d implement a Witch in a game, rather than having a few interesting but vague ideas about the class. This is a good thing because the APG left me a little vague on how I would run one.
Now we come to the 30 additional feats for Witches which makes up the core of this document. On the whole, I think they're well crafted and will be immediately useful to players wanting to dabble in a little familiar based spell casting and hexing. In fact, the biggest strength in these new feats are those that address the Witch's familiar. There are a ton of interesting feats which make the Witch's familiar into more of an asset in combat and less of a heavily guarded, mobile spellbook. Familiar Concentration, where your familiar can concentrate on a spell for you, Familiar Range Extension, up to 100 miles of contact, and Hexing Familiar which does what it says all stand out for me.
There are other stand out feats. Infer Spell which allows you to figure out a spell based on how it's triggered by a magic item is a fun. Usurp Spell allows you to steal control of a spell cast by another.
As with my previous review of the Secrets of the Alchemist, there are a few feats which could, depending on how you and your group handle them, be game breaking. Extra Familiar, which allows for an additional familiar which you control could be one of these. Familiar Training, which allows you to share your applicable feats with your familiar is another. I'm not really prepared to take huge points off for this though because they could also work very well in your campaign. It's more of how they are implemented and used. Some may not find them flawed at all.
After the new feats we are presented with three character builds for the Witch, following the character from 1st through 20th level.The Arch Witch is someone who specializes in dominating other spellcasters. The White Witch build (which I cannot help but nickname The Glinda) is a Witch who specializes in healing and helping, while punishing those who are evil. The last build is the Wicked Witch (or the Alfaba?) who is just you think.
All of the builds are good, and in themselves offer even more insight into this class. Keep in mind that they do rely on the feats presented in this document.
If you want to expand on the new classes presented by Piazo, specifically the Witch in this case, certainly pick this up. It will be well worth the read and the new feats are for the most part well done and balanced.
Last edited by Sigfried on Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:53 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Sigfried |
| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:52 pm Post subject: Megan Robertson from Paizo.com - 5 of 5 stars |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
Reviewer: Megan Robertson
Website: Paizo
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
There were a few attempts to bring out a Witch character class for Dungeons & Dragons 3e, but now that Paizo have added one to the Pathfinder RPG, witches are now integrated into the ruleset... and ripe for development and expansion, as here. Now Pathfinder witches are powerful wielders of magic, not cuddly modern Wiccans but a spellcasting force to be reckoned with, a match for any wizard or sorcerer and able to hold their own in play.
While you will need to read the full class in the Advanced Player's Guide before you start to use this book, it begins by giving an overview of the specific strengths of this character class. In some ways they are similar to wizards with spell lists, familiars, and 'at will' powers at their disposal; but the differences are quite profound. Witches tend to be more generalist, and their familiars can act as a repository for their magical knowledge, a sort of 'living spellbook' which means that, as written, it's probably not a good idea to allow your familiar to brawl too often. The real fun comes with the hexes that they can cast, these 'at will' powers give the witch some of the flavour and potency of the most feared mediaeval legend. Just as well, as they are not very physical and need to rely on defensive and healing magic in combat situations.
The class summarised, we move on to the real meat of this work, a full 30 new feats designed to make the most of the witch class, building on her strengths and addressing at least some of the weaker areas. Many are available to any character who can meet the prerequisites, but they are designed with the witch in mind. There are some nice ones to enhance your familiar - perhaps it too can cast hexes or concentrate to maintain a spell freeing you to do something else - and many improve or allow variation in spells. For example, there's the Discriminating Spell metamagic feat, which lets you choose to have one specific race or creature type either targeted by or immune to the spell you wish to cast. Indeed there is a wealth of neat ways to hone your witch's abilities through these feats.
The work rounds off with three witch 'builds' - suggested ways of planning and developing a witch character from first level on. One is the arch-witch, a magic specialist who dominates other spellcasters, demanding knowledge and power from them. Then there's the white witch, who defys the usual image of an evil cackling crone casting curses, specialising in healing both the injured and the world as a whole. And if you'd rather be traditional, there's a wicked witch as well!
Overall, if you want to play a witch this work has some useful suggestions for making the most out of the class, playing to the strengths and exploiting potentials.
Last edited by Sigfried on Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:56 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Sigfried |
| Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:53 pm Post subject: Dark_Mistress of Paizo.com - 5 of 5 stars |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
Reviewer: Dark Mistress
Website: Paizo
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
The Witch's Brew by Open Design
This product is 14 pages long. It starts with a cover, ToC, credits and Intro (3 pages)
Next it jumps into examining the new witch class from the APG from paizo. It looks at all the classes powers and the good and bad aspects of the witch. (1 pages)
After that it moves onto 30 new feats. (6 pages)
Ability Damage Resistance – reduces ability dmg
Counterspell Feedback – damage caster of the spell you counter
Craft Magic Tattoo – Create a tattoo with spell like ability
Delay Spell – delays the spell effect
Discriminating Spell – can choose to not effect a race or creature type.
Dispell Mastery – bonus to dispell checks.
Expert Healing – bonus dmg healed when using heal skill
Extra Familiar – get a extra familiar.
Familiar Concentration – familiar can maintain a concentration spell for caster.
Familiar Development – familiar gains abilities as if caster was two levels higher.
Familiar Feat – familiar learns a feat.
Familiar Focus – familiar abilities are based on your character level instead of class level.
Familiar Range Extension – Familiar can roam further from you.
Familiar Reincarnation – Familiar comes back knowing all the same spells.
Familiar Training – familiar can use your feats.
Guarded Casting – can fight defensively while casting spells.
Hexing Familiar – familiar may use any basic hex you know, not in the same round as you.
Improved Caster Level – cast spells as if higher level, but no higher than character level.
Infer Spell – can learn spells from spell triggers etc.
Linked Resistance – gain familiars resistance for short time
Mass Effect Spell – single target spells effect more targets.
Opportunity Counterspell – able to counter spell with out ready action.
Potent Hex – higher DC for hexes.
Rememorize – can swap out a memorized spell for another with time.
Robust Health – bonus save vs poison and disease.
Seduction – bonus to bluff, diplomacy skills and charm spells.
Serve Two Masters – gain second set of patron spells.
Signature Focus – expensive item that takes the place of materials for spells.
Soul Mate – can sense when soul mate in trouble and bonus to skill checks used on them.
Touch Mastery – may use spell casting stat in place of str on touch attacks.
Usurp Spell – When countering a spell may have it effect you instead of target.
Next it gets into character builds giving three types of witch builds to help people build witch characters. (3 pages)
Arch Witch – Focuses on dominating other spell casters.
White Witch – More healing and battle field control build
Wicked Witch – battle field control and hexes.
It finishes with a OGL.
Closing Thoughts. The cover art is use twice and that is the only artwork in the book. There is a few side bars explaining why some things was done by the author. This time unlike the last one in the series it is a lot more printer friendly. I thought the feats where better this time with none I couldn't see someone taking and many are up there with some of the better feats in the game. I don't think any are over powered though a few are on the high end of the scale with Paizo's feats.
My only real complaints about the book is, it still could have been more print friendly. The faint arcane background images look cool and would not be bad on a printer but I would have still liked to seen a true print friendly version as well. The other complaint is there was something screwy with the copy and paste. While trying to copy and paste the names of the feats to this review it kept having copy errors. I am not sure what could be causing it and none of my other PDF's have this problem. Both are fairly minor issues.
My rating this time falls as follows. For those looking for more options for witch's and advice for builds then this is a 5 star. For those just looking for some new options for the witch then this is a 4.5 star. For the rest I still say it is a 3 star as many of the feats can be used by other classes and they are well done.
Last edited by Sigfried on Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:58 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Zherog |
| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 5:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
Contributor
Joined: 03 Jan 2008
Posts: 586
Location: Bensalem, PA
|
Shouldn't you attribute the reviews to the reviewer, by posting a name or link (or both)?
_________________
John Ling
Freelance Writer
Kobold Fan |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Sigfried |
| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 8:08 am Post subject: |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
| Zherog wrote: |
| Shouldn't you attribute the reviews to the reviewer, by posting a name or link (or both)? |
They are in the titles of the posts, I hadn't realized that the titles would be so hard to see in the thread format.
I'll change them over to include that information in the body of the post. I'm still sorting out how best to present these.
Thanks for noting this! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Zherog |
| Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2010 8:41 am Post subject: |
|
|
Contributor
Joined: 03 Jan 2008
Posts: 586
Location: Bensalem, PA
|
Well, look at me failing my Perception check...
_________________
John Ling
Freelance Writer
Kobold Fan |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Dark Mistress |
| Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 9:27 am Post subject: |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 04 Oct 2010
Posts: 27
|
| I see you already got my review for this. I had posted it in the forum in it's own thread already as well. Plus posted it at ENworld, Paizo and I forget where else. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Sigfried |
| Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 10:09 am Post subject: Emerson's Bookshelf - Unrated |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
Reviewer: Robert N Emerson
Website: Emerson's Bookshelf
Rating: Unrated
Advanced Feats: The Witch's Brew (PDF)
by
Sigfried Trent
Published by Open Design
Disclaimer: The copy used for this review was provided by the folks at Open Design.
The Witch's Brew, the latest in the Advanced Feats series from Open Design and Sigfried Trent, covers the Witch class from the Pathfinder Advanced Player's Guide, with respect to paths and ways to grown one. It's 14-pages, from cover to cover, with about 12 of those being inspiration for characters, and 11 being informational.
For this who've not explored this series before, the Advanced Feats takes a look at the new classes for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, introduced in the Advanced Player's Guide, and explore the class, possible tropes and themes to explore with it, as well as various build ideas. Drawn from the OGL 'verse, as needed, Sigfried Trent provides some interesting, and well-formed ideas in this series.
Which brings us to The Witch's Brew, illustrated nicely by the cover, which bears an interesting iconic image by Christophe Swal.
The Witch's Brew offers three class-builds, 30 class-related feats, as well as a discussion about the class, its features, and ways to use and demonstrate them. One of my favorite parts of the Advanced Feats series, thus far, are these discussions. Yes, the feats are good. Yes, the builds are useful. But, it's these discussions that sometimes offer another perspective on a class, how to use it or build it, and other interesting ways to show that.
Now it might be the timing of it, as I'm currently playing a witch in one of my games, but I really found this offering to be quite useful. Not only because of the talk about the class and its flavor, but also for the feats and builds. If you're in a campaign where you're interested in playing a witch, I doubt you could go wrong with this modest offering. Short, sweet, and concise, The Witch's Brew is a very useful class-feature book.
Buy yours today, for $3.95 (PDF). |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Sigfried |
| Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 10:10 am Post subject: PRG Resource Unrated |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
<Duplicate>
Last edited by Sigfried on Sat Nov 06, 2010 11:28 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Sigfried |
| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 12:00 pm Post subject: Mordicai Caeli |
|
|
Patron
Joined: 08 Jan 2008
Posts: 94
|
Reviewer: mordicai caeli
Website: Mordicai
Rating: Recomended
The "Advanced Feats" series by Kobold Quarterly is just the stuff you're looking for, especially if you recently picked up a copy of Pathfinder's Advanced Player's Guide. Each of these dozen(ish) page articles are chock-full of a mix of the sort of "duh" feats that you can't believe haven't been published before, coupled with the "neato" feats that get you to re-examine class features in a new light. Sigfried Trent is the chief editor of The Netbook of Feats, & has a decade of mechanics balancing under his belt, & it shows; these aren't over-powered, but they definitely rank in the "useful" category-- no "Dodge" here. Trent attaches a commentary to eac feat, explaining why it works, how it might be useful, or why it isn't broken-- a level of transparency that any DM can appreciate. Each article ends with a few "Builds," a list of feats for your character to take at each applicable level in order to get the most bang for your buck. Personally, I like my characters to acquire feats organically, as they progress, but seeing a progression-- a chain reaction, so to speak-- is useful.
Secrets of the Alchemist starts off right out of the gate giving me ideas-- the examination of the class just struck a cord, making me visualize an alchemist who drops a poison gas bomb at his own feet to take advantage of his own immunity, & then proceeds to lobs bombs out of that, daring anyone to come try to engage him in melee. Hey, that guy is great, & the "Mighty Mutant" build for maximizing on the alchemist's Mutagens is a great Mister Hyde feat tree. Many of the feats for the alchemist made me think of my former player Gerd, who constantly bemoaned how badly off item creators had it; well, "Craft Anywhere" & its ilk are meant for people like him. I was sort of offended to see "Craftsman"-- just a boring old +2 to a skill feat? I thought things like "Accurate Assessment" & "Lighten Weapon" were weird & could be great character hooks. Something like Suicide Bomber is a cute ability but broken-- as a Dungeon Master it occurs to me only as fodder for "you see a goblin running at you. He seemed to be covered in Yule ornaments..." but I see too much potential for PC abuse, let alone making it a feat. Rules to cover it, yes-- because as the commentary says, your PCs will try it-- but a feat isn't the right spot for those rules.
I think that Secrets of the Alchemist makes me want to play the Alchemist class, but Witch's Brew seems the most useful to the class-- & to any class that resembles it. I don't like classes that are limited by spell list-- in fact, I hate spell lists entirely. They are a bottleneck, & limit fun rather than enable it. That being said, I'm not sure Hexes arn't entirely better than spells-- the downside seems to be that you can't apply metamagic, but who uses metamagic? Apart from a special case Quickened spell, that is. It just reminds me of how superior "Sudden Metamagic" feats were-- much preferred, thank you! Putting that aside, I think the feat tree of most interest are the ones pertaining to familiars & to countermagic-- both of which add a unique feel to the class. Familiars have always been under-exploited & the feats provided go a long way towards making them useful-- both from a mechanical standpoint & from a story perspective. While Secrets of the Alchemist has a great "jerk" power-- "Sundering Bomb"-- Witch's Brew has "Familiar Reincarnation" which is basically "save versus mean DM." The counterspell list goes a long way towards making it a viable character option, rather than what the author calls a "once in a character's lifetime event." I think my favorite feat in the list is "Signature Focus," which provides what is essential "Eschew Materials" for the more expensive spell components-- but does it in a way that is both balanced & flavorful.
Far & away, the best part of these supplements is how useful they might be to a range of characters. Sure, some of the feats are really only applicable to the specific classes-- some modify class features, for instance-- but others are just ripe to be picked up by any class. Want a slew of feats to buff your familiar, Wizards? Check out Witch's Brew. Want to juggle your inventory, item-heavy Rogue? Ah, then Secrets of the Alchemist is right up your alley. They are a tight grouping of neat powers which buff specialty classes, provide options to a wide range of PCs & have a few "snake hands" where unexpected rules blossom-- tattoo magic, damage reduction, using a healer's kit to actually heal damage, making ranged opportunity attack, that kind of thing. Above all it is an interesting series-- maybe you are playing an Inquisitor or a Summoner or some other class...in which case I'd be rubbing my hands together with glee, anticipating one of these bundles. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
  |
Goto page 1, 2 Next |
Page 1 of 2 |
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
|
|
