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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010941" data-attributes="member: 18387">Aether and Flux is a fantasy space supplement, reminding me of SpellJammer in that you travel through space on ships the can be used on the open sea with a few unique changes. These changes are what make this such a good product. This PDF is broken up into six chapters and three appendixes as follows.Chapter 1: Introduction gives you a brief history and explains what Aether and flux are. Simply put Aether is stellar winds while flux is a form of electricity. Also introduced are the ravin (the resident bad guys for the setting). The ravin are an insectoid race that are out to expand through all known space, a brief history of the ravin and descriptions and stats for the three major types of ravin (worker, warrior, and elite) are also here.Chapter 2: Walking the Docks starts by giving you a fully detailed space port for you to use. While being detailed enough for use as is it also leaves you enough room to expand it if you wish. This chapter also details around thirty different ships for use, from small keel boats to galleons. The best part of this chapter is that it includes full deck plans for eight of the ships. Although the majority of the ships are for human use there are two elven ships as well as the ravin ships here as well. The only problem I have with this chapter is there are no other types of vessels specifically for the other races (Dwarves, Halflings, etc.) Chapter 3: Signing Aboard goes into great detail about crew ratings and crew titles. While important ratings and crew titles will not really affect the players but are more suited for npcs. Under crew titles are stat blocks for ready to use NPCs. Following this are ten new feats, seven new magic items and three new spells. There are also a Varity of new weapons for use on vessels sailing in space or the open sea.  The majority of the feats that are here have uses on any sailing type vessel whether in space or on the sea. These types of feats include catapult reloader granting you the ability to reload catapults faster. A few of the feats deal with things like negating the penalties for being in an unfamiliar gravity. The next section is weapons, nothing too powerful here just standard things that can be used as weapons found on board ship. An example would be the Belaying Pin while it can be used as a club its main use is to allow the easy adjustment of tension on ropes. Aeathership equipment details most common thing found on board of the space faring ships. The majority of the items are Flux equivalents of the magical items found in the next section. These items include gravity generators and air purifiers. The magical items are almost the exact same as the flux items while the new spell are the ones needed to make the magic items. That is the problem I have with this chapter there are not enough new spells for the setting while not being a major problem I would have liked a few other unique spells that have nothing to do with the basics of surviving the trip through space.Chapter 4: Unfurl the Mainsail is where you find the core mechanics for the setting. Traveling speeds, combat between ships, maneuvering and ships armaments are all covered in this chapter. The best part of this chapter is the armaments section; here is where you will find a decent amount of weapons for ship to ship combat. From normal catapults to cannons are all detailed here. There are even a few magical and flux powered weapons as well. Anther thing that I found of great use are grenade like weapons from the PHB ( Tanglefoot bags, Alchemist Fire, etc.), this chapter even has around ten different poisons as well but made for the ships weapons to use. Chapter 5: The Sea of Stars details a ready to use star system (the Mailstrom). While the majority of the chapter is the Mailstrom there are also sections on gravity, planetary locations and orbits as well as a section detailing everything you need to create a star system.Chapter 6: Captain’s Cabin is where you will find a better history of the setting. The three eras of play, Emergence (beginning of space travel), Exploration (First people leaving the star system), and finally the Empire (the current time of the setting). Each stage is broken down into a brief history, challenges (adventure ideas), and heroes and villains of that era of play.Appendix A: Sailors’ Slang is a dictionary of commonly used words and sayings for your NPCs to use to add realism to the setting.Appendix B: Combat Companion is a full sheet of charts found in the other sections of the book all put in one place to make the GM’s life easier. Examples include ships weapons, tactical speeds, etc.Appendix C has a few blank sheets for your use in creating star systems and planets.Overall I enjoyed Aether and Flux but found it lacking in a few areas. The first thing is there are no setting specific classes and no guidelines for how the regular PHB classes or the majority of races can be used or are viewed by other planets. Another problem that I had is there aren’t any prestige classes for the setting either while not a major problem without setting specific things like this the setting feels like normal D&D in space. There are a few things that make this product worth the cost. One of these is the ships deck plans and all of the ships stats, these are great in that you don’t need to use them in space they could easily be used for any regular fantasy setting. Another thing I liked were the ravin, while not being too powerful they add a new and interesting idea to not only the setting but could be used as well in a fantasy setting with no problems. So for a GM looking to add space travel to there campaign with out going sci-fi this will do but keep in mind you will have to do a little modification to the setting for it to be truly a space campaign and not just PCs in space.</blockquote>

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