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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pinotage" data-source="post: 2373513" data-attributes="member: 15194">17 Magic Cloaks17 Magic Cloaks is a pdf product from The Le Games, one of several products in The Le Games' 17 Series. 17 Magic cloaks features new magical cloaks that can form part of magical treasure or a plot hook, or can be something the characters can craft during time off from adventures. This pdf, written by The Le and Sean Holland, has a page count of 19 pages, 3 of which are devoted to OGL declarations, and 2 which are devoted to introductory material, leaving 14 pages to detail the 17 cloaks in this product. 17 Magic Cloaks normally retails on RPGNow for $2. I received 17 Magic Cloaks for free as a review copy.Initial Impressions:This product comes in three different versions - an onscreen version, a print version (the former both fully bookmarked) and a rich-text cut, copy and paste version containing the product text. For those that create their own adventure or campaign notes from published sources, the latter is a useful addition to any pdf product. In addition, there is a larger version of the cover art as a separate file. Cover art and interior art is simple, yet gives the product a more complete feel, although in some cases the art looks irrelevant to the cloaks described on the pages that contain the art. The cloaks presented range in cost from 4500 gp to 45000 gp, offering a good range of prices for various levels of character. I'd hoped to find more cloaks at cheaper prices, something that would provide an alternative to the Cloak of Resistance at lower levels. The pdf provides a treasure table to randomly select a cloak, although it would've been more useful if the cloaks had been divided into minor, medium or major so that they could be used in conjunction with the tables found in the core rules. There are some really intriguing cloaks in this pdf, such as the Cloak of Souls, fashioned from the souls of dead humanoids, and the Cloak of Vampirism, conferring some of the abilities and weaknesses of vampires to the wearer. A number of cloaks were extensions of existing spell effects, such as the Cloak of Feasting, while others offer unique abilities such as the Cloak of Precognition or the Cloak of Goo. In general there are some clever ideas in here, mixed in with some ordinary ones, but there should be something in there to inspire many DMs or players.The Details:The meat of the pdf details the seventeen cloaks listed below: Cloak of Aqua Men - offering benefits in venturing underwater and dealing with underwater creaturesCloak of Casting - alleviating some of the arcane spell failure caused by armorCloak of Colors - a cloak that changes its ability once per day as it shifts in colorCloak of Deflection - provides protection against ranged attacksCloak of Dragon Strike -  allows the wearer to summon a dragon to aid the characterCloak of Goo - a cloak that dispenses in a unique way with a mouldable goo that can be shaped into walls or bridgesCloak of Healing - offers a number of immunities and provides healing abilityCloak of Feasting - creates food and sustains the wearer without foodCloak of Flames - provides the wearer with a protective sheath of fireCloak of Force - grants an armor bonus to AC while allowing the wielder to also harness this force armor as an offensive powerCloak of Phasing - protects the wielder by phasing in and out of the material planeCloak of Precognition - grants to wearer future perception, allowing re-rolls of dice and other abilitiesCloak of Razor Flight - the wearer can fly, and also use the razor sharp wings formed by the cloak as a weaponCloak of Souls - a cloak stitched together with the skins of the dead, allowing the wearer to harness the power of their soulsCloak of Spikes - an excellent defense against grapplingCloak of Ugliness - proving that ugliness is not always such a bad thingCloak of Vampirism - conferring certain vampiric benefits and weaknesses to the wearerThere are a number of neat ideas amongst these cloaks, as the brief descriptions above should attest to, particularly such cloaks as the Cloak of Souls or the Cloak of Goo, the former in particular. While the implementation of the cloaks' abilities is occasionally somewhat clumsy, the ideas behind them reflect some creativity and originality, and inspire further ideas based on them. The cloaks are all presented with suitable flavour and descriptive text, followed by detailed descriptions of their abilities. Whether you need to summon a fire breathing dragon to aid your escape, or hastily construct a bridge over a chasm, or heal a fellow adventurer when your cleric is spent, each of these cloaks provides a handy addition to plot, treasure or craft offering something for those players or DMs looking for alternative or new magical cloaks.The introductory materials provides guidelines for balancing the cloaks presented, something that would most likely be required for a number of the cloaks presented in this book - either cost or toning down the power of the cloaks themselves. A large part of the balancing issue stems from the fact that many of the cloaks presented use the wearer's character level as a basis for the their power, rather than something like the magical item's caster level. While the idea of items increasing in power with character level is appealing, it does present other problems that would need careful consideration, such as cost and power at higher levels. The Cloak of Force, for example, provides an armor bonus to AC equal to half the wearer's level. At 20th level, this amounts to a +10 armor bonus to AC, an epic item by most standards, and certainly worth more than the listed cost.There are also a number that offer free action activation of the cloak's abilities. I felt that in some cases the activations should have been standard actions instead. For example, the Cloak of Deflection allows the wearer to generate an aura, as a free action, that deflects ranged attacks, which would've been more suited as a standard action. Some of the cloaks also increase in power and offer additional abilities the longer the cloak is worn, an idea that can affect the items power since such potential restrictions are often not restrictions at all.Another idea that is touched upon briefly is the idea that any specific cloak could have a 'creation' recipe - something that could be used as a plot hook or the focus of an adventure. A couple such plot hooks are mentioned (one with a particular Star Wars feel!), although no details of any recipes were given.Conclusions:17 Magic Cloaks offers new cloaks that can be used in any campaign setting, as cloaks or potentially as other items if the item enhancements are transferred to different items. It provides numerous good ideas behind the cloaks, shows some originality, and present a DM with a few options to expand his campaign or game, or the player to create a different concept based on a novel cloak.Despite some good content and ideas, the pdf requires some balancing on some of the cloaks and some careful thought on the application of the cloaks' powers. It also unfortunately suffers from numerous editing errors and occasionally clumsy game mechanics and wording (e.g. cloaks have enhancements, not enchantments). I think this pdf could be a worthwhile addition to any gamer's library, although the ideas inspired me more than the mechanics did. Based on balance between the good and the bad, the product gets a rating of three stars, or average, but was closer to three and a half stars. A link to the product's page is listed below for convenience.<a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?manufacturers_id=507" target="_blank">17 Magic Cloaks Product Page</a></blockquote>

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