Neuroglyph
First Post
As many fans are aware, earlier this month PaizoCon 2011 was held out in Bellevue, WA, and in honor of that event, I thought it would be only fitting to review a new Pathfinder related product. 
As it so happened, last month, Open Design LLC – known to many in the gaming community as those Kobold Quarterly folks – published a new Pathfinder supplement for Players - The Complete Advanced Feats book!
I should mention that The Complete Advanced Feats book was designed by Sigfried Trent, a name practically synonymous with the Netbook of Feats project, and who is no stranger to feat editing and design. I was fortunate enough to obtain a review copy (Thank you, Shelly!), and so have had an opportunity to take a look at this new player-character content for Paizo’s Pathfinder game system.
The Complete Advanced Feats
Production Quality
The production quality of The Complete Advanced Feats book is quite good, with material presented in a logical format, and with some sharp writing and design. The feats are presented in a format recognizable to any Pathfinder (or D&D) gamer, and many of the feats include a commentary section with design notes and recommendations for use in the game. The book includes a table of content for reference, and the PDF includes bookmarks for ease of navigation through the pages.
The artwork is fair to good, with a number of memorable pieces which enhance the overall reading experience of the book. I have to admit, I’m a sucker for any pics involving kittens, and in the familiar feats section of the book, there is the drawing of one laying on the back of a giant grimacing toad – I can’t help myself… it was just too damned cute not to mention!
The Feats
There are a wide range of content in The Complete Advanced Feats book, from new martial feats, to spellcasting and metamagic feats, to feats which enhance movement and skills and equipment use. One type of feat I liked in particular was the Familiar Feats, which has some really interesting potential. In essence, it offers a spellcaster with a familiar the option of spending a feat to grant his familiar a feat, such as Familiar Concentration, Familiar Development, and Familiar Focus. In a way, it makes one’s familiar much more interesting, assuming a caster is willing to sacrifice a feat for his magical pet.
There are also a category of Teamwork Feats, which grant benefits to members of a group that take the same feat. Examples of these new feats are Coordinated Fire, Strength in Numbers, and Team Initiative. I really liked the Soulmate Feat, which grants player-characters the ability to sense when the other is in danger, and increases bonuses when skills are used on their soulmate.
And of course, no Open Design product would be complete without some mention of clockworks – I know that editor Wolfgang Bauer has a real obsession for tick-tocking magical machines. There’s a nifty new metamagic feat called Clockwork Summoning, which brings forth a clockwork version of a creature normally summoned to aid the caster.
There are some feats which I feel are fairly close to ones we’ve seen before in the various 3.5 “Complete” books, but re-named and updated to Pathfinder stats and terminology. But honestly, after the number of years and editions that D&D has been on the market, one might easily say that there is “nothing new under the sun”, and Pathfinder-ing some of these older feats does add more diversity to the gaming experience.
One issue I did have with all this new Pathfinder material – and I have had this same complaint with 3.5 and 4E feat lists as well – is that there is a real issue with feat organization. The feats in The Complete Advanced Feats are organized in simple alphabetical order, with no thought to grouping feats into categories to make feat selection easier and more effective. Given the number of feats already in play from the Pathfinder Core Rules and Advanced Players Guide, taking the extra time editing and laying out the feats into some sort of organized list would have been a great service to both GMs and Players wanting to use this book.
Advanced Character Builds
The second half of The Complete Advanced Feats is a guide to Advanced Character Builds. The author has taken the six character classes from the Advanced Players Guide and gone into great detail about how to build optimized and unique characters from those rules, including new feats from The Complete Advanced Feats. The analyses and recommendations cover many facets of each class and are quite thoughtfully written, giving sort of a thumbnail précis of pros and cons for each category. Categories include spellcasting, defenses, skills, and a run-down of benefits of class features. There are even recommendations on whether multi-classing is a good option, and potential benefits from such a character choice.
And the author even includes a 2-3 sample builds per class, with a recommended leveling guide from 1st to 20th Level. Some examples of these builds include the Wild Bomber and Mighty Mutant builds for the Alchemist class, the Green Knight and Black Knight for the Cavalier class, and the White Witch and Wicked Witch for, well, the Witch class. I found a couple of builds particularly intriguing, and think I definitely would enjoy playing the Detective build for the Inquisitor Class, which I think reminded me a lot of the recent portrayal of Sherlock Holmes by Robert Downey, Jr. The author mixes the Monk and Inquisitor classes very well to create a nice crime-fighting investigator. The Chess Master build for the Summoner class is also very nifty, specializing in wall and pit spells to make any battlefield a nightmare of peril for one’s enemies. As a veteran Marvel comic fan, the Chess Master build immediately evoked images of the villain Arcade, who toyed with his enemies in many similar ways, and would be a heck of a lot of fun to portray the character as a vigilante hero.
Overall Score: 4.1 out of 5.0
Conclusions
The Complete Advanced Feats book is a really great supplement for any Pathfinder gamer out there. The book offers a tremendous selection of new feats, and the Advanced Character Builds is like having a bonus player-character “strategy” guide built right in to make the book instantly useful for creating new and diverse characters. The fact that the supplement comes in both PDF and print versions with one purchase, it makes it a very decent buy for a gamers’ dollar, providing both a hardcopy of The Complete Advanced Feats for the bookshelf, and an electronic copy for your hand-held or laptop to use at the gaming table.
So until next review… I wish you Happy Gaming!
Author’s Note: This Reviewer received a complimentary copy of the product in PDF format from which the review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 1 to 5)
As it so happened, last month, Open Design LLC – known to many in the gaming community as those Kobold Quarterly folks – published a new Pathfinder supplement for Players - The Complete Advanced Feats book!I should mention that The Complete Advanced Feats book was designed by Sigfried Trent, a name practically synonymous with the Netbook of Feats project, and who is no stranger to feat editing and design. I was fortunate enough to obtain a review copy (Thank you, Shelly!), and so have had an opportunity to take a look at this new player-character content for Paizo’s Pathfinder game system.
The Complete Advanced Feats
- Designer: Sigfried Trent
- Editors: Wolfgang Bauer, Scott Gable
- Publisher: Open Design LLC
- Illustrations: Christophe Swal (cover); Christophe Swal, Stanislav, Anne Trent, Matt Widmann, Jonathan Roberts, Olaus Magnus, Darell Langley (interior)
- Year: 2011
- Media: PDF + Print (77 pages)
- Cost: $18.95 (PDF + Print from Kobold Quarterly)
Production Quality
The production quality of The Complete Advanced Feats book is quite good, with material presented in a logical format, and with some sharp writing and design. The feats are presented in a format recognizable to any Pathfinder (or D&D) gamer, and many of the feats include a commentary section with design notes and recommendations for use in the game. The book includes a table of content for reference, and the PDF includes bookmarks for ease of navigation through the pages.
The artwork is fair to good, with a number of memorable pieces which enhance the overall reading experience of the book. I have to admit, I’m a sucker for any pics involving kittens, and in the familiar feats section of the book, there is the drawing of one laying on the back of a giant grimacing toad – I can’t help myself… it was just too damned cute not to mention!
The Feats
There are a wide range of content in The Complete Advanced Feats book, from new martial feats, to spellcasting and metamagic feats, to feats which enhance movement and skills and equipment use. One type of feat I liked in particular was the Familiar Feats, which has some really interesting potential. In essence, it offers a spellcaster with a familiar the option of spending a feat to grant his familiar a feat, such as Familiar Concentration, Familiar Development, and Familiar Focus. In a way, it makes one’s familiar much more interesting, assuming a caster is willing to sacrifice a feat for his magical pet.
There are also a category of Teamwork Feats, which grant benefits to members of a group that take the same feat. Examples of these new feats are Coordinated Fire, Strength in Numbers, and Team Initiative. I really liked the Soulmate Feat, which grants player-characters the ability to sense when the other is in danger, and increases bonuses when skills are used on their soulmate.
And of course, no Open Design product would be complete without some mention of clockworks – I know that editor Wolfgang Bauer has a real obsession for tick-tocking magical machines. There’s a nifty new metamagic feat called Clockwork Summoning, which brings forth a clockwork version of a creature normally summoned to aid the caster.
There are some feats which I feel are fairly close to ones we’ve seen before in the various 3.5 “Complete” books, but re-named and updated to Pathfinder stats and terminology. But honestly, after the number of years and editions that D&D has been on the market, one might easily say that there is “nothing new under the sun”, and Pathfinder-ing some of these older feats does add more diversity to the gaming experience.
One issue I did have with all this new Pathfinder material – and I have had this same complaint with 3.5 and 4E feat lists as well – is that there is a real issue with feat organization. The feats in The Complete Advanced Feats are organized in simple alphabetical order, with no thought to grouping feats into categories to make feat selection easier and more effective. Given the number of feats already in play from the Pathfinder Core Rules and Advanced Players Guide, taking the extra time editing and laying out the feats into some sort of organized list would have been a great service to both GMs and Players wanting to use this book.
Advanced Character Builds
The second half of The Complete Advanced Feats is a guide to Advanced Character Builds. The author has taken the six character classes from the Advanced Players Guide and gone into great detail about how to build optimized and unique characters from those rules, including new feats from The Complete Advanced Feats. The analyses and recommendations cover many facets of each class and are quite thoughtfully written, giving sort of a thumbnail précis of pros and cons for each category. Categories include spellcasting, defenses, skills, and a run-down of benefits of class features. There are even recommendations on whether multi-classing is a good option, and potential benefits from such a character choice.
And the author even includes a 2-3 sample builds per class, with a recommended leveling guide from 1st to 20th Level. Some examples of these builds include the Wild Bomber and Mighty Mutant builds for the Alchemist class, the Green Knight and Black Knight for the Cavalier class, and the White Witch and Wicked Witch for, well, the Witch class. I found a couple of builds particularly intriguing, and think I definitely would enjoy playing the Detective build for the Inquisitor Class, which I think reminded me a lot of the recent portrayal of Sherlock Holmes by Robert Downey, Jr. The author mixes the Monk and Inquisitor classes very well to create a nice crime-fighting investigator. The Chess Master build for the Summoner class is also very nifty, specializing in wall and pit spells to make any battlefield a nightmare of peril for one’s enemies. As a veteran Marvel comic fan, the Chess Master build immediately evoked images of the villain Arcade, who toyed with his enemies in many similar ways, and would be a heck of a lot of fun to portray the character as a vigilante hero.
Overall Score: 4.1 out of 5.0
Conclusions
The Complete Advanced Feats book is a really great supplement for any Pathfinder gamer out there. The book offers a tremendous selection of new feats, and the Advanced Character Builds is like having a bonus player-character “strategy” guide built right in to make the book instantly useful for creating new and diverse characters. The fact that the supplement comes in both PDF and print versions with one purchase, it makes it a very decent buy for a gamers’ dollar, providing both a hardcopy of The Complete Advanced Feats for the bookshelf, and an electronic copy for your hand-held or laptop to use at the gaming table.
So until next review… I wish you Happy Gaming!
Author’s Note: This Reviewer received a complimentary copy of the product in PDF format from which the review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 1 to 5)
- Presentation: 3.75
- - Design: 4.5
- - Illustrations: 3.0
- Content: 4.5
- - Crunch: 4.5
- - Fluff: 4.5
- Value: 4.0
