What are reviewers saying about Advanced Feats: Secrets of the Alchemist by Sigfried Trent, Open Design’s resource for expanding your alchemist PCs and NPCs for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game?

I love the feats in the book. They are clearly well designed, taking into account the strengths of the class and add new options without being overpowering. The … commentary explaining rule decisions and expounding on the feat’s application are a great addition.

I found all the feats in the book useful; they work especially well with the three builds at the end of the book, very flavorful. The builds … show very well how different race and feat choices create diverse, effective and exciting versions of the same class.

This book lives up to the hype … In its short 12 pages, 9 of them actual rules, the author manages to add depth and options to the class that will add months, if not years, of gaming opportunities for the Alchemist class.

… you can’t go wrong with this book. I heartily recommend it.

Read the full review at Stargazer’s World.

And…

As a writer, a GM, and player, I need tools to help me get to the game table faster while making play smoother and easier.

Hero Lab is one of those tools.

For this review, I used my workhorse machine—a Pentium dual-core, 2.20 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Windows 7 on an Asus K60IJ notebook. We won’t get into real technical jargon, like CPU cache or graphics cards because, truthfully, I don’t think they matter for this application.

Because we’re a sort of Switzerland here at KQ, I reviewed this tool for both 4E and Pathfinder, putting it through its paces. I made PCs, NPC fodder, minions, and even a few complex villains. Let me say straight up, before we get into the nuts and bolts of this review, this is a solid product. It downloaded easily, verified the license without heartache, and even performed updates and pulled down data files without so much as an irritated curse from me. And you may or may not agree with the process, but I also like to tackle these programs without reading the manual—call it foolish, but I call it the unrestrained glee of someone with a new toy. However, I did reference the manual if I ever got stuck. And there were a few moments where I fought a little with the interface, but those moments were brief. What do I mean? Well let’s talk about it…

What are reviewers saying about Kobold Guide to Game Design, Vol. 3 (print/PDF), Open Design’s source for game design?

… As with the first two volumes, if you’re an aspiring pro this book is a must. If you’re a rules hacker like me, this stuff is solid gold. If you’re just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill gamemaster who just runs a game for his regular group and has no such lofty ambitions, this volume is still useful but you’ll have to cherry-pick the bits that might pertain to you. I’d argue that, for a typical GM, Greenwood’s essay “Crafting a Dastardly Plot” alone is worth the price of admission. Wolfgang’s “Location as a Fulcrum of Superior Design” tosses out some conventional wisdom that a good villain or a solid plot is the starting point of a good story and goes straight to the setting; food for thought, there, juxtaposing worldbuilding and storytelling…

I dug this volume a lot, and I think it has some of the strongest pieces in the entire series. It’s got more page flags, highlighter marks and notes scribbled in the margins than Volume II, but not as many as Volume I. It’s the volume I’m most likely to re-read as I write my own games, and quote from when arguing game design with others. Good stuff.

Read the full review at UncleBear Media.

And…

What are reviewers saying about Sunken Empires (print/PDF), Open Design’s source for exploring underwater civilizations for Pathfinder Roleplaying Game?

It’s not so much a setting as it is a toolkit for building an underwater setting for your own game. It discusses Atlantis, Lemuria, and Mu as worldbuilding examples, and goes on to a walk-through of creating the Lost City of Ankeshel. It discusses how various classes function in an undersea setting, with new feats, non-magical equipment to help characters survive, and the requisite spells and magic items…

My favorite part, though, is the section on undersea adventuring. The first line feels like it was written specifically for me: “Adventurers are most comfortable when the feet are on solid ground”. Yes, please! It then breaks down how to run underwater adventures by levels…

Kobold Quarterly #13 has been out for over a month and there are still reviews steadily pouring in. Find out what the buzz is about.

I love Kobold Quarterly. It’s true. I gush with abundant gamer love for this magazine, more so every issue. Yet, as a reviewer I’m always looking for something critical to say, something to help my readers decide whether they want to buy this issue or not. Never works. It’s all just varying degrees crunchy-fluffy goodness. Even the edition split fails as a sorting criteria. KQ’s articles are carefully crafted for use across editions, even when they are written for one. On top of that, for each edition there’s always at least one article for which it’s worth buying the whole magazine, while many articles work for all editions. Wolfgang and the KQ crew really hamper the critic, let me tell you.

In response, I’ve decided to take this approach: if you’re a gamer, get yourself a subscription to KQ. Period. You won’t regret it. And they don’t pay me to say that; I just think it’s true…

Read the full review Lou Agresta’s RPGAggression.

We’ve got a little something for everybody. Pick up your own copy of Kobold Quarterly #13 (print/PDF).