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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009999" data-attributes="member: 1129">Allies and Adversaries is a character compendium to add NPCs to any d20 fantasy based game.  The book is a short, 32 page full color collection of mainly high powered individuals that misses some important details in NPC creation.First off, there is no table with a master listing of challenge ratings.  A small thing in and of itself but one that would be nice to have.  Second and more importantly, there is no methodology for how the characters were created.  Without this knowledge, it’s difficult to decide how best to change elements of the characters that don’t fit with your own campaign style.  Third, there are no challenge ratings.  For the most part, this isn’t an issue as most of the characters within the book are base races but there are a few half breeds and non-standard races   that hail from the Monster Manual which throws their Challenge Ratings off.  Lastly, another minor point, there isn’t really anything unique about these characters.  Bonds of Magic, an NPC collection of spellcasters by Malhavok, provided at least one unique thing in the form of a new spell, magic item or feat that the creatures had.  All of these are completely self contained.Now for the good news.  The book is in full color with some great illustrations of each and every character.  Each character has role playing notes, an easy to read stat block, and a chunk for background information.  Most characters are world neutral so if you’re looking to add a dwarf fighter or a wandering elf monk, you won’t have any problems as the characters have no named homes in the backgrounds.  There are some though, like Uthmar the Dragon, a 16th level barbarian, who won’t be appropriate for some games due to his conquest of oh, say about a quarter of the known world.  Characters are arranged in alphabetical order by character name so it’ll take a read through or two before you can find what you’re looking for.  For example, if you’re looking for a good aligned cleric to help bump up you’re party’s healing, Lillith, a half-celestial 12th level cleric, might be exactly what you’re looking for.  You wouldn’t look under cleric, or under CR 14, but under L for Lillith.Hopefully any future releases in this series will include a methodology of how the characters were created, how their items were chosen and some unique factors to add value to the product.  In the meanwhile, it remains a solid source of mid (minimum level of 10th) to high (20th) level characters for any d20 fantasy campaign.  Those looking for a well-illustrated collection of characters will enjoy Allies and Adversaries.</blockquote>

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