Recent content by Libertad

The Book of Gears This pseudo-chapter follows the earlier Tome formats in being collected essays about the mechanics and world-building of D&D 3.5. The topics of focus mainly concern character advancement, gold and treasure, and other subjects of material substance such as traps and constructs...

Chapter 13: Adventuring This chapter is quite fluff-heavy, primarily covering dungeons, fantasy ecologies, and adventure ideas and inspirations for planar travel. We first start out with the Socialnomicon, a collection of essays discussing the normalization of violence in D&D and how that...

So I'm going to be wrapping up my review of the Frank and K Tomes soon (have 2 posts to go), so I've been interested in reviewing some more 3.5 products. I figured to ask here and other places to get a bit of a read on what people might find interesting for me to cover. I have 8 products in...

Thank you, I am happy to see so many others are enjoying my readthrough. I do plan to do other books. I'm not one for making promises, but here are some novels I'm interested in covering in a similar fashion: Bram Stoker's Dracula The Inheritance Cycle (aka Eragon series) by Christopher...

Book 4, Chapter 6: the Forbidden Pool Another rare error in this printing of the book, describing Sam surreptitiously following Frodo and Faramir: "As he went by the cave-mouth he saw that the Curtain was now become a dazzling veil of silk and pearls and silver thread; melting icicles of...

Chapter 12: Magic Image is Wizard's Duel by Phill-Art A relatively short chapter, Magic is composed of both new rules and general essays on the state of affairs in D&D 3.5 as they stand. The essays vary in subject, with some of them not even being about magic at all. The chapter starts out...

It's now Christmas on the American East Coast! Time to tear open the presents!

In regards to the OP, this reminds me of a DLC for Final Fantasy 15 where you played from the villain's perspective. The primary combat theme was "Conditioned to Hate" by Lotus Juice. The lyrics were so ridiculous in a "trying too hard" way.

Book 4, Chapter 1: the Taming of Sméagol Darkly amusing that for all his earlier fussing about needing rope, Sam nearly forgets about it during their descent down a cliff. But it doesn't feel totally out of character, for him and Frodo were undergoing significant stress from wandering alone...

Chapter 9: Combat Basics Image is the Duel by Shen Fei This post is going to be a three-parter on account that these chapters cover a lot of material that exists in the core rules. Most of Chapter 9 covers basic concepts such as how to calculate one’s attack bonus, initiative and surprise, and...

I haven't done any more reading yet, but I did want to talk about the Dunlendings and why I find them fascinating. This came after jumping through various fan wikis and reddit discussions. They're a group that appears to have some legitimate historical grievances for their treatment by other...

Book 3, Chapter 10: the Voice of Saruman Looks like Gimli and Éomer were the first to pass their Will saves against Saruman's enchanting voice! Very easy for Saruman to speak of the Power of Friendship when he's surrounded and the rest of his forces in Isengard are demolished. Gandalf casts...

Book 3, Chapter 6: the King of the Golden Hall The "would you part an old man from his walking stick?" came from Aragorn in the book, but Gandalf in the films. In the book it's a case of Aragorn helping ensure they're not entirely defenseless, but in the films it is Gandalf being clever in...

It's short for "Where I Read." it's different than a [Let's Read] in that it's a first-time experience with a book and thus not a review in the typical sense. To be specific, it's an "orphan," where the first line of a paragraph appears at the bottom of the page. So it's less an outright...

Book 3, Chapter 3: the Uruk-hai Merry must be really strong to cut off a bunch of orc hands and arms. Given how easily so many orcs die in the series, it does make me wonder how they got stereotyped as buff, strong dudes in later fantasy media. Interesting note that the various orcs come from...