Back when D&D 4E was still a thing, a 3rd Party Publisher named Northwinter Press released a supplement aimed at merging elements of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition with the well-known Pokémon franchise. The resulting genre mash-up setting was reviewed here on EN World a little over a year ago in this same column (Click here to read the previous review.)
Recently, Northwinter Press has released a new revision of its original role-playing game supplement which is adapted to Pathfinder RPG rules. Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters revisits the fantasy land known only as The Kingdom, and offers new rules and new creatures for PFRPG players become trainers of all manner of monsters… or even play a monster themselves!
Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters (for PFRPG)
Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is a setting supplement and sourcebook designed for Pathfinder PRG which allows adventurers to become Trainers and to quest with monsters as their companions and allies. The setting contains more than 150 monsters, both new and variants of well-known PFRPG creatures, which can be trained to be allies or used as foes in an adventure. Mystical: KoM also offers a new base class (Monster Trainer), six new Trainer archetypes for existing classes, and a new race called Monstorin – a monster-humanoid hybrid. The supplement also includes rules on training monsters, new spells, feats, and more…
Production Quality
The production quality of Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is quite good overall, with some sharp, inventive writing from the author and a very impressive looking layout for the book. Monster stat blocks, feat and spell presentation, and character content generally follow formats familiar to Pathfinder RPG players and GMs. Important notes and commentary are found throughout the book in bright blue boxes which stand out starkly on the pages.
Mystical: KoM has a very detailed table of contents which is hyperlinked to specific pages in the PDF which allows for good navigation. Disappointingly, it does lack PDF bookmarks but the table of contents somewhat makes up for that even if one has to page back to it periodically. The setting supplement also has a number of very useful indices which are also hyperlinked to pertinent sections of the book. These include an index of monsters by CR and an index of monsters by spell or power they possess.
The artwork in Mystical: KoM is pretty good overall and are rendered in an homage to the Pokémon anime style. Much, if not all, the artwork in the book is reprints of the original release of the setting for D&D 4E. There are a few newer looking pieces which appear to be combinations of two pieces of art over-laid, some of which are of comparable styles and some of which are clearly drawn by different artists. Each of the monsters in Mystical: KoM has its own portrait, although many are rendered with what might be considered a cute-plush-toy appearance, which does take away from the ferocity of more fearsome beasts.
A fairly serious omission in this setting book was the inclusion of a map of The Kingdom – expectations would tend to be that any product calling itself a “setting” would contain some sort of map. With the number of hobbyist and professional cartographers within the gaming community, it seems a fairly serious oversight not to have engaged the services of a fantasy mapmaker.
Choose it or lose it!
Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is bit of an adventure setting, a bit of a character supplement, and a whole lot of monster manual – monsters and their stat blocks cover more than 120 pages of this book. But the book also contains character development material, new spells, new feats, and even magic items. Mystical: KoM setting is divided up into four chapters and two indices.
In Chapter 1: Character Options covers the new content for a classes, consisting of a new base class, six archetypes, and new player-character race. The Monster Trainer is a new base class capable of finding, capturing, and training monsters to act as allies and companions. Much as in the Pokémon story, captured monsters do not act on their own, but must be directed by the owner to use their abilities. The Monster Trainer gains other abilities to use with their monsters as well as spells, and can call upon their monster companions to wield powers. Given that Monster Trainers cannot capture monsters higher CR than the character’s level and cannot act in the same round (as their monster as they need to be directed what to do) the class doesn’t seem on the surface to be too unbalanced. There are archetypes to add to existing character classes as well – Monster Auror, Monster Breeder, Monster Gambler, Monster Performer, Monster Researcher, and Monster Scout. There are also some new spells which carry on the theme of battling using monsters or training or handling them – Battlefield Adept, Capture Monster, and Fury Guard are just a few examples. The new race, the Monstorin, is an interesting idea – essentially, it is a trained monster morphing into a humanoid hybrid form at the death of its trainer. These monstorin can be a hybrid of almost any monster, and has some of theappearance and attributes of the monster and the creature’s dead trainer.
Chapter 2: Monsters provides a revised “monster manual” of creatures native to The Kingdom. Each entry includes a creature portrait, stat block, and available spells available to the Monster Trainer when the use the monster in battle. In some cases, the monster entries also include the monstorin traits, consisting of ability score modifiers, speed, type, vision, and special powers to use when creating a character. Some of the monsters included in this monster manual are very (painfully) Pokémon in nature, combining features of elemental and animal in “cute” ways – for example, the Castor looks like a blue teddy bear with crystals growing out of it; Root Snakes – codenamed Pesto, Cloves, and Basilesk – are part snake and part herb. One thing that is starkly absent from the monster entries is any sort of description about the creature – its ecology, origins, temperament and other background information must be divined from the list of powers and abilities a monster possesses. There are a (very) few entries describing major creature types such as what a demon, devil, or dragon is and how it fits into the setting, but the majority of monsters in this chapter are just raw stat blocks and power descriptions, and any other aspects of the creature must be created by the GM.
In Chapter 3: Monster Training, the author offers 15 new feats and 5 new magic items appropriate to this setting. The new feats include ones to increase the potency of monsters in combat, grant monsters powers of human speech, or even make a monster as a familiar. New magic items include the Monster Manual, Ring of Bonded Allies, and the Sash of Greater Bonding – all of which enhance the abilities of the Monster Trainer (or character with a monster training archetype). This chapter also includes new revised tables for Monster Summoning or Summon Nature’s Ally spells taking into account the new monsters native to The Kingdom. These monster tables are also hyperlinked in the sourcebook for quick reference.
And finally, Chapter 4: The Kingdom discusses the setting itself, but sadly, this section is just as sparse in detail as it was in the 4E release. The setting contains one to two paragraphs about each region, and is accompanied by a random encounter chart. With such sparse information about the world and no map to be found, it makes the concept that this is a setting book all the more confusing.
Overall Score: 5.8 out of 10.0
Conclusions
While certainly a better product than the previous release for D&D 4E, the Pathfinder RPG version of Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is still suffering a bit of an identity crisis: Is it a Monster Manual? A Character Sourcebook? A Fantasy Setting? The book ends up being a monster manual, with some odd character and setting rules tucked into it, and some random encounter charts thrown in. I suppose there might be a juxtaposition of Pathfinder RPG fans who are also big into all things Pokémon, but for the rest of the gaming community, Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is just a really bizarre collection of way-too-cute looking fantasy creatures.
Undoubtedly, the work is imaginative and the author clearly has some talent at rules writing and game design, but the lack of setting in what seems to be sold as a fantasy world. And game balance seems questionable if used within other fantasy settings – it seems that unless everyone in the campaign played some sort of Monster Trainer or archetype, the whole capture, train, and command your creatures into battle ala Pokémon, it would probably be difficult to run other non-monster wielding classes alongside someone that can summon a CR 10 dragon-spider at will.
So if you’re a PFRPG fan who has always desired to play Pokémon with bulettes, glabrezu, trolls, and whatever the heck a tesoroo is, then this book might be just what you’re looking for in a (very) light campaign setting. For other Pathfinder gamers, Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is probably just a bit too eccentric to drop some cash on a copy.
Editorial Note: This Reviewer received a complimentary playtest copy of the product in PDF format from which the review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 0 to 10)
Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters (for PFRPG)
- Designers: Kevin Glusing
- Illustrators: Jeff Porter (cover); Raynaldo Perez, Jeff Porter, JennaTheDragon, Joe Ketterer, Sushy00, Antriku, Jiko29, Meep-and-Mushrat (interior)
- Publisher: Northwinter Press Team
- Year: 2014
- Media: PDF (180 pages)
- Price: $12.00 (Available from RPGNow)
Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is a setting supplement and sourcebook designed for Pathfinder PRG which allows adventurers to become Trainers and to quest with monsters as their companions and allies. The setting contains more than 150 monsters, both new and variants of well-known PFRPG creatures, which can be trained to be allies or used as foes in an adventure. Mystical: KoM also offers a new base class (Monster Trainer), six new Trainer archetypes for existing classes, and a new race called Monstorin – a monster-humanoid hybrid. The supplement also includes rules on training monsters, new spells, feats, and more…
Production Quality
The production quality of Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is quite good overall, with some sharp, inventive writing from the author and a very impressive looking layout for the book. Monster stat blocks, feat and spell presentation, and character content generally follow formats familiar to Pathfinder RPG players and GMs. Important notes and commentary are found throughout the book in bright blue boxes which stand out starkly on the pages.
Mystical: KoM has a very detailed table of contents which is hyperlinked to specific pages in the PDF which allows for good navigation. Disappointingly, it does lack PDF bookmarks but the table of contents somewhat makes up for that even if one has to page back to it periodically. The setting supplement also has a number of very useful indices which are also hyperlinked to pertinent sections of the book. These include an index of monsters by CR and an index of monsters by spell or power they possess.
A fairly serious omission in this setting book was the inclusion of a map of The Kingdom – expectations would tend to be that any product calling itself a “setting” would contain some sort of map. With the number of hobbyist and professional cartographers within the gaming community, it seems a fairly serious oversight not to have engaged the services of a fantasy mapmaker.
Choose it or lose it!
Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is bit of an adventure setting, a bit of a character supplement, and a whole lot of monster manual – monsters and their stat blocks cover more than 120 pages of this book. But the book also contains character development material, new spells, new feats, and even magic items. Mystical: KoM setting is divided up into four chapters and two indices.
And finally, Chapter 4: The Kingdom discusses the setting itself, but sadly, this section is just as sparse in detail as it was in the 4E release. The setting contains one to two paragraphs about each region, and is accompanied by a random encounter chart. With such sparse information about the world and no map to be found, it makes the concept that this is a setting book all the more confusing.
Overall Score: 5.8 out of 10.0
Conclusions
While certainly a better product than the previous release for D&D 4E, the Pathfinder RPG version of Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is still suffering a bit of an identity crisis: Is it a Monster Manual? A Character Sourcebook? A Fantasy Setting? The book ends up being a monster manual, with some odd character and setting rules tucked into it, and some random encounter charts thrown in. I suppose there might be a juxtaposition of Pathfinder RPG fans who are also big into all things Pokémon, but for the rest of the gaming community, Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is just a really bizarre collection of way-too-cute looking fantasy creatures.
Undoubtedly, the work is imaginative and the author clearly has some talent at rules writing and game design, but the lack of setting in what seems to be sold as a fantasy world. And game balance seems questionable if used within other fantasy settings – it seems that unless everyone in the campaign played some sort of Monster Trainer or archetype, the whole capture, train, and command your creatures into battle ala Pokémon, it would probably be difficult to run other non-monster wielding classes alongside someone that can summon a CR 10 dragon-spider at will.
So if you’re a PFRPG fan who has always desired to play Pokémon with bulettes, glabrezu, trolls, and whatever the heck a tesoroo is, then this book might be just what you’re looking for in a (very) light campaign setting. For other Pathfinder gamers, Mystical: Kingdom of Monsters is probably just a bit too eccentric to drop some cash on a copy.
Editorial Note: This Reviewer received a complimentary playtest copy of the product in PDF format from which the review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 0 to 10)
- Presentation: 6.75
- - Design: 7.0 (Good writing; nice layout; hyperlinks instead of PDF bookmarks)
- - Illustrations: 6.5 (Decent cover art; lots of re-published art with disparate styles)
- Content: 5.75
- - Crunch: 7.0 (Lots of new content; tons of monsters; questionable balance)
- - Fluff: 4.5 (Minimal setting content; no monster descriptions; mostly rules and mechanics)
- Value: 5.0 (Pricey book for Pokémon monsters designed with PFRPG rules.)
