By Jonathan Drain and The Le
Published by The Le Games
Pages: 14 + OGL (Landscape PDF), 13 + OGL (Portrait PDF)
Fully bookmarked
Disclaimer: This is not a playtest review. I did not buy 17 Relics, it was sent to me for review as part of
Crothian’s Review Project.
In the D&D scheme of things introduced by Wizards of the Coast’s Complete Divine, a relic, not to be confused with an artifact, is a magical item that only functions when worn or used by someone who believes in the deity to whom the relic is dedicated. The Le Games has decided to ignore this definition, using instead the idea that a relic is some magical item that was not simply fashioned, but rather inexplicably became that way owing to some extraordinary event. And then they describe for you 17 of ‘em.
What you get is a ZIP containing five files. The first is a readme-style document, which includes a short description for each of the following files. The last file is a full-colour JPG image of the cover, should you wish to print out a copy. In between are three versions of 17 Relics, an RTF for use primarily in copy-and-pasting text into your own notes, a two-column portrait-style PDF, ostensibly for printing purposes, and a two-column landscape-style PDF for viewing onscreen. The latter two PDFs come fully bookmarked. If you’re at all familiar with any of The Le Games’ products, this is all pretty standard stuff. There’s a good chance that whatever are your needs or preferences, the various formats have it covered.
The artwork is about average for a product such as this. I actually like the cover art, it’s a simple piece with the silhouette of a cloaked figure against a moody sky and ominous, portentous clouds. (Is that a dragon? A roc? A giant chicken?) Inside, the numerous relics are divided by seven pieces of clipart meant to represent some of them, scooped from a variety of sources. Some are decent, and others are inexplicably odd. For example, the picture of a hangman’s noose takes up half of a page. It’s very well drawn, but ultimately, it’s just a loop of rope!
The preface contains a Table of Contents, listing page numbers should you happen to print out one of the PDFs, or simply seek to blindingly ignore the copious bookmarks in neo-Luddite fashion. The header and footer of each page after the preface sports a thick black, printer toner-hungry bar. The header bar contains the title of the product, while the footer contains the publisher’s name, their motto, the page number, and two other names: Tony DiGerolamo and Wayne Tonjes. Having read the credits, it’s clear that Wayne Tonjes is the editor, so I can understand how he gets second billing on each page, but I have no idea who Tony DiGerolamo is, as the writers have been listed in the preface as Jonathan Drain and The Le himself.
On the topic of editing, I must say that it is much better here than in the previous PDFs from The Le Games that I’ve had the opportunity to review. Alas, I caught a number of things that still managed to slip through. For starters, the hyperlink to take you to the Yahoo discussion group is truncated across two lines. Clicking on it throws the erroneously truncated URL at your web browser, thereby defeating the purpose of not forcing you to type the URL out in the first place. Embarrassingly, the link to the editor’s email address is similarly borked. In the Plot Devices section of the document, a line reads ”… an evil man who has offered to buy the kitty man times, but was turned away each time,” which would be better as “… an evil man who offered to buy the kitty many times, but was turned down each time.” Similarly, “Something has been amiss however,…” should read “Something is amiss, however,…” Be forewarned, if things like this bother you, and clearly they bother me, then reading through portions of 17 Relics may have you grinding your teeth in dismay.
Before getting to the nitty-gritty after which the product is named, 17 Relics seeks to provide you with three plot hooks. At first I thought these might be used to introduce one or more of the subsequent relics, but as it turns out, no, these three hooks are oddly and wholly independent of the following material. The first hook tries to encourage the heroes to rescue a kidnapped cat. The second has them investigate a number of goblins trying to blow up a bridge, and the third commissions them to attempt to retrieve some items on behalf of an interested third party. There isn’t really much to these things other than a rough description of the hook and what’s really going on behind the scenes, leaving it up to the DM to fill in the rest.
The seventeen relics themselves are rather hit and miss. Some are interesting, but usually only a paragraph or two at most have been devoted to the relic’s back-story. Prices are included so that DMs have a handle on how much these things are worth as treasure, but I found some of the prices to be rather inflated as compared to similar items in the DMG. For example, the Bone Mask of Life adds a small competence bonus to its wearer’s Intimidate skill, gives a similar penalty to Diplomacy, a small bonus to saving throws caused by spells and special abilities employed by undead, and boosts its owner’s Turning Level by one. All for the price of 30000 gp. Compare this to the
Phylactery of Undead Turning in the DMG, which boosts turning level by four, for a mere 11000 gp, and a
Cloak of Resistance +1, which boosts all saving throws by one for another 1000 gp. Similarly, Lucky Underwear is a rather anachronistic and slotless version of the DMG2’s
Mantle of Second Chances. It does the exact same thing, but at over four times the price. (The magic item pricing guidelines indicate that a slotless item should only cost double the original’s base price.)
In addition, some of the rules used for the various relics are spotty. For instance, once per day, the Deathscythe allows the bearer to attempt a death attack. Okay so far, but the calculation used for the Fortitude save DC doesn’t use the standard formula of “10 + relevant level + relevant ability modifier” (Assassin’s death attack DC) or even “10 + half racial HD + relevant ability modifier” (Monster special ability DC), but rather it uses “5 + half character level + Cha modifier”. It’s little things like this that have me losing faith in the authors' grasp of the d20 rule set.
On the other hand, there are some creative gems in here. I found the Bravestone inexplicably flavourful. Basically, it’s a fragment from the monument of a saint, chiseled off and immersed in holy water, which grants a moderate bonus to saving throws versus fear effects. And at 4000 gp, it even seems reasonably priced for its effect. Junstarien’s Leg has an interesting, if short, back-story, as if a
+2 ghost touch undead-bane greatclub formed from a giant skeleton’s thigh bone wasn’t interesting enough. Likewise, Rusted Faith is noteworthy because while it may not detect as magic, it certainly detects as good, forcing players to think a little outside of the “Detect Magic”-box if they wish to realize the full potential of that particular item. But perhaps my favourite of the bunch is the Weave Summons Gauntlet, whose primary ability is to shorten the casting time of "Summon-" spells from a full round casting time down to a standard action. I think it makes for a creative and unique item, allowing an ability that’s not already explicitly covered in the rules, but in a way that won’t likely break anything.
In summary, The Le Games’ 17 Relics offers seventeen new magical items for your game. Some of the items I feel are good, but with many of them I found issue with a number of the supporting rules. What you get out of this product, I suspect, will largely depend on what you put into it. There’s the glint of some good stuff in here, but it will still need a fair amount of polish to bring out its best qualities.
Reviewed by Scott Benoit
