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<blockquote data-quote="ArchfiendBobbie" data-source="post: 7308019" data-attributes="member: 6867728"><p>My review:</p><p></p><p><strong>Organization</strong></p><p></p><p>The organization of the product up until the New Rules Material section is pretty good. There are a few minor problems, as noted by others, but nothing that isn't a quirk or minor irritation. Really, you could leave most of it alone.</p><p></p><p>The New Rules Material section could use a massive reorganization. I would suggest changing the order to Backgrounds, Archetypes, Feats, Leadership Feats, Prestige Classes, Magic Item, and then Spells. The current organization makes one think you mistakenly put the spells and magic item in the middle of the feats section. And having the archetypes placed earlier has people thinking more along the lines of those when selecting feats.</p><p></p><p>Also, the art is sometimes placed oddly. However, this is the same complaint I have about the core DnD products, so your product is not out of line with the core material. Feel free to ignore my art complaint.</p><p></p><p><strong>Backgrounds</strong></p><p></p><p>For the most part, they are good.</p><p></p><p>I am uncertain the point of the Festival Organizer background; it seems like it wouldn't be a true background at all, given the limits of it. Maybe fold it into another background?</p><p></p><p>The effect of the War Mage background makes me think it would be far better reworked as a feat than being left as a background.</p><p></p><p><strong>Feats</strong></p><p></p><p>I have to admit the odd base requirements threw me for a moment, but I had a similar reaction to racial feats from XGTE at first. It is purely not being used to 5E feats having any real requirements beyond a base attribute score. So, I would not change the requirements of the regular feats. Just don't be surprised if people have the same reaction I had.</p><p></p><p>Now, comes the downside... Speaking about the Leadership Feats.</p><p></p><p>Speaking purely from a playing perspective, the entire Leadership Feat section is worthless. They are usable as written, but run into the problem that every feat is going to have with 5E: Feats come at too high a price to take more than two or three of them in a character's lifetime. That means that <strong><em><u>any</u></em></strong> feat tree, no matter how many feats it involves, is going to be at a massive disadvantage in 5E when compared to all of the feats that are not part of a tree. I would suggest considering feat trees to simply be dead in this edition.</p><p></p><p>I would suggest taking the entire Leadership Feats section back to the drawing board. If you want to keep them as feats, remove Leadership Performance and rework all of the others as stand-alone feats. But given the concept I see you are working on, I would suggest instead reworking that entire section as a bard archetype; what you have would be a perfect archetype feature set.</p><p></p><p><strong>Fluff</strong></p><p></p><p>East Wind Style and West Wind Style I must call out right off the bat. The fluff for those two perfectly justified their odd class requirements once I thought about it a moment.</p><p></p><p>I also like the way you connect the Spellduelist to Gabal.</p><p></p><p>Those two, to me, perfectly show off the writing level of this product. Despite my earlier complaints about organization and a certain feat set, I would buy this product purely for the fluff. It also is one of the best player's guides I've read for an adventure path, just due to the amount of setting material it includes. That alone justifies buying it.</p><p></p><p>The amount of setting material is useful in another fashion: Character backgrounds. Someone making a character who wants to set it in Gate's Pass or another area related to the AP would have no trouble writing up a character background with enough information to fit. It also makes it easier for a DM to adapt to odd things the group will do, since they have more information to draw from and thus less on-the-spot prep work they need to do in order to keep the campaign flowing.</p><p></p><p>My only complaint might be that there isn't enough fluff about the area, but this is a player's guide and not a setting guide.</p><p></p><p><strong>On The Whole</strong></p><p></p><p>Overall, despite what negative things I had to say up above, this is not a bad product by any stretch of the imagination in its current form. The final product should be worth the money easily.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ArchfiendBobbie, post: 7308019, member: 6867728"] My review: [B]Organization[/B] The organization of the product up until the New Rules Material section is pretty good. There are a few minor problems, as noted by others, but nothing that isn't a quirk or minor irritation. Really, you could leave most of it alone. The New Rules Material section could use a massive reorganization. I would suggest changing the order to Backgrounds, Archetypes, Feats, Leadership Feats, Prestige Classes, Magic Item, and then Spells. The current organization makes one think you mistakenly put the spells and magic item in the middle of the feats section. And having the archetypes placed earlier has people thinking more along the lines of those when selecting feats. Also, the art is sometimes placed oddly. However, this is the same complaint I have about the core DnD products, so your product is not out of line with the core material. Feel free to ignore my art complaint. [B]Backgrounds[/B] For the most part, they are good. I am uncertain the point of the Festival Organizer background; it seems like it wouldn't be a true background at all, given the limits of it. Maybe fold it into another background? The effect of the War Mage background makes me think it would be far better reworked as a feat than being left as a background. [B]Feats[/B] I have to admit the odd base requirements threw me for a moment, but I had a similar reaction to racial feats from XGTE at first. It is purely not being used to 5E feats having any real requirements beyond a base attribute score. So, I would not change the requirements of the regular feats. Just don't be surprised if people have the same reaction I had. Now, comes the downside... Speaking about the Leadership Feats. Speaking purely from a playing perspective, the entire Leadership Feat section is worthless. They are usable as written, but run into the problem that every feat is going to have with 5E: Feats come at too high a price to take more than two or three of them in a character's lifetime. That means that [B][I][U]any[/U][/I][/B] feat tree, no matter how many feats it involves, is going to be at a massive disadvantage in 5E when compared to all of the feats that are not part of a tree. I would suggest considering feat trees to simply be dead in this edition. I would suggest taking the entire Leadership Feats section back to the drawing board. If you want to keep them as feats, remove Leadership Performance and rework all of the others as stand-alone feats. But given the concept I see you are working on, I would suggest instead reworking that entire section as a bard archetype; what you have would be a perfect archetype feature set. [B]Fluff[/B] East Wind Style and West Wind Style I must call out right off the bat. The fluff for those two perfectly justified their odd class requirements once I thought about it a moment. I also like the way you connect the Spellduelist to Gabal. Those two, to me, perfectly show off the writing level of this product. Despite my earlier complaints about organization and a certain feat set, I would buy this product purely for the fluff. It also is one of the best player's guides I've read for an adventure path, just due to the amount of setting material it includes. That alone justifies buying it. The amount of setting material is useful in another fashion: Character backgrounds. Someone making a character who wants to set it in Gate's Pass or another area related to the AP would have no trouble writing up a character background with enough information to fit. It also makes it easier for a DM to adapt to odd things the group will do, since they have more information to draw from and thus less on-the-spot prep work they need to do in order to keep the campaign flowing. My only complaint might be that there isn't enough fluff about the area, but this is a player's guide and not a setting guide. [B]On The Whole[/B] Overall, despite what negative things I had to say up above, this is not a bad product by any stretch of the imagination in its current form. The final product should be worth the money easily. [/QUOTE]
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