There are three things I must note at the beginning of this review. First, this is my first review on ENWorld. Second, I received a complimentary copy of this book. Third, I’m motivated to review this product by the offer of another free book for doing so.
Upon receiving 17 Plants as a free random book from The Le Games, my honest reaction was: “Of all the books they publish, this might possibly be the one I was least interested in.” (For what it’s worth, The Le has a lot of interesting class ideas in the “Unorthodox” series.) But, not one to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, I sat down to read about 17 plants. Overall, I must admit that I was far more impressed than I expected to be, yet I also remained unconvinced of the product’s utility in my (and, I suspect, most peoples’) games.
The content of 17 Plants is pretty self-explanatory from its title: contained within its 32 pages are descriptions of 17 varied exotic plants, each described with relevant game statistics. The plants vary from helpful to dangerous and the variety kept things interesting while reading.
A fundamental premise of the text is the notion that these plants are found in “the ancient forests,” i.e., forests deep and remote enough to be unpopulated by any intelligent races except for perhaps a hermitic druid of some sort. This premise actually intrigued me, though it seems to me that if these plants are contained in forests that are considered “special” even by the standards of many fantasy worlds, encounters with these plants would be remote indeed.
Each plant description contains material on appearance, properties, guidelines for locating and harvesting the plants properly, and, where applicable, information on marketing or purchasing harvested plants. Some entries also contain a brief plot hook.
I would like to be able to supply examples of particular plants in the collection that stood out to me, but unfortunately, I found the subject sufficiently obscure that I never got excited enough to think, “I can’t wait to use a patch of everfresh grass in my next story!” It’s important for me to note that this is not a critique of the quality of the work itself. I just think that the work is more detail about plant life than most campaigns are going to need, aside from some unusually druid/ranger-heavy wilderness campaigns.
I must comment positively on the art direction of the piece. The drawn artwork throughout is serviceable, but the layout also includes a number of appropriate photographs. These wilderness photos worked very well for me, capturing a mood that actually made me more interested in the text surrounding them. I was particularly moved by the photo of the “ancient forests” on page 4 and the evocative photo of the protean shadow tree on page 17.
To conclude, I don’t think I will get much use out of 17 Plants, as I suspect the product is too specialized for most campaigns. However, for the niche campaigns that could use this level of detail, 17 Plants provides 17 well-written, useable plants waiting to be discovered in and around the ancient forests.
Upon receiving 17 Plants as a free random book from The Le Games, my honest reaction was: “Of all the books they publish, this might possibly be the one I was least interested in.” (For what it’s worth, The Le has a lot of interesting class ideas in the “Unorthodox” series.) But, not one to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, I sat down to read about 17 plants. Overall, I must admit that I was far more impressed than I expected to be, yet I also remained unconvinced of the product’s utility in my (and, I suspect, most peoples’) games.
The content of 17 Plants is pretty self-explanatory from its title: contained within its 32 pages are descriptions of 17 varied exotic plants, each described with relevant game statistics. The plants vary from helpful to dangerous and the variety kept things interesting while reading.
A fundamental premise of the text is the notion that these plants are found in “the ancient forests,” i.e., forests deep and remote enough to be unpopulated by any intelligent races except for perhaps a hermitic druid of some sort. This premise actually intrigued me, though it seems to me that if these plants are contained in forests that are considered “special” even by the standards of many fantasy worlds, encounters with these plants would be remote indeed.
Each plant description contains material on appearance, properties, guidelines for locating and harvesting the plants properly, and, where applicable, information on marketing or purchasing harvested plants. Some entries also contain a brief plot hook.
I would like to be able to supply examples of particular plants in the collection that stood out to me, but unfortunately, I found the subject sufficiently obscure that I never got excited enough to think, “I can’t wait to use a patch of everfresh grass in my next story!” It’s important for me to note that this is not a critique of the quality of the work itself. I just think that the work is more detail about plant life than most campaigns are going to need, aside from some unusually druid/ranger-heavy wilderness campaigns.
I must comment positively on the art direction of the piece. The drawn artwork throughout is serviceable, but the layout also includes a number of appropriate photographs. These wilderness photos worked very well for me, capturing a mood that actually made me more interested in the text surrounding them. I was particularly moved by the photo of the “ancient forests” on page 4 and the evocative photo of the protean shadow tree on page 17.
To conclude, I don’t think I will get much use out of 17 Plants, as I suspect the product is too specialized for most campaigns. However, for the niche campaigns that could use this level of detail, 17 Plants provides 17 well-written, useable plants waiting to be discovered in and around the ancient forests.
