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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2008931" data-attributes="member: 18387">My background for this review is that I have read many Cthulhu mythos stories, but have never read the Chaosium RPG so I won't compare this to that. This will be a long review...General:Cost: $39.95 for 320 pages in a hardcover seems about normal to me considering the quality of this book.Layout: This book has a great layout with some interesting presentations and a few minor flaws. One thing you notice right away is the columns aren't divided equally but have a diagonal seperation. This may annoy some people but for me it doesn't effect my readabilty at all. I think is a great idea giving that strange Mythos atmosphere to something as boring as column layout. Now the one minor flaw I see is how the pricing for weapons is handled. Instead of placing it in the table with the weapon statistics there is a seperate table for the general prices. I would have much preffered a specific price for each weapon. However it does aid in estimating the prices of guns from other sources.Artwork: This is one of the high points of this book. The quality of the art is excellent , on par with the best from the Psionics Handbook. Also the representations of the Mythos creatures are perfect. Some highlights include the Sanity chapter start on p. 46 great insane glint in that guy's eyes, my favorite p. 285 a picture of Cthulhu trashing the iconic characters from the PHB, and p. 294 Hastur with a nice Yellow Sign behind him. Chapter by Chapter AnalysisIntroduction: A nice intro here. Standard "what is roleplaying" sidebar and an interesting commentary on melding CoC with D20 that gives some insight into the choices they made.Chapter 1 - Character Creation: Sticking with the books general concept of not making a standard d20 game, the classes have been, more or less removed. Instead everyone is like an Expert from the DMG with some nice twists. You choose Offesive or Defensive Save and BAB progression then choose a template of core skills or can choose the option to make a new "class" by choosing any 12 skills as class skills. I love this because it really focuses the system on the skills in a way that makes most characters unique from each other. Also for a more combat oriented game they give the option for Defense bonus ala Star Wars.Chapter 2 - Skills: Like I said above with the focus on the skills this is an important chapter. You get 8 + Int skill points a level so you have many points to spread around. The standard skills are here with useful additions like Computer Use, Demolitions, Psychoanalysis (Heal for the mind), Repair, and Research. Also of note are the Cthulhu Mythos and Psychic Focus skills. Cthulhu Mythos has no upper limit but can't be bought with skill points. You gain ranks by surviving mythos encounters or readng mythos tomes and it lowers your max sanity. Psychic Focus ties in with Psychic feats from the next chapter.Chapter 3 - Feats: An assorted batch here including some modern updates like Drive-By Attack and Rolling Shot. I would have like to see more roleplaying oriented feats. Also there is an entire group of Psychic Feats which you can take after you take the Sensitive Feat. These allow a character to use the Psychic Focus skill to read minds, "read" the history of an object, see invisible things, and much more. These may not be appropirate for all campaigns but they will excite some people greatly.Chapter 4 - Sanity: How they fit an entire Psych 101 course into one chapter I'll never know. This chapter is just that good! It lays out Sanity and the Sanity score for your characters. It lists how you can slip into insanity in different ways for different periods of time. It tells you have to seek  treatment. And then it lists more mental disorders than you can shake a Freudian phallic symbol at. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> There is an entire sidebar listing 50+ phobias which can be used as manias and philias also. (Teratophilia, attraction, possibly sexual, to monsters, can you think of a more dangerous disorder for a Cthulhu game?) The sanity system gives a sort of second hit point system. The book describes how you can alter it to reflect heroes struggling with horrific events or an inevitable slide into madness for your characters. Definately one of the best parts of this book.Chapter 5 - Combat: Nothing too increbily earth shaking here but they do have firearm rules that are well detailed. Also of note, Attacks of Opportunity are considered a optional rule. Chapter 6 - Equipment: Something for the gun nut in all of us =) They have both very general rules for guns (for those that could care less) and very detailed specfic stats for many guns. A great deal of this chapter describes specfic guns. A wonderful section describes how gun control laws, like the Brady Bill, will effect your PCs. Finally there is a great deal of misc. equipment that could have been detailed more fully. This chapter definately has a modern era focus however prices are listed for both 1920s and 2000s.Chapter 7 - Magic: Details the books, artifacts and spells. Unlike the D&D system you  can cast spells you know as much as you want... at a price. All the items in this chapter have a definate dark tone that will keep characters up at night. Spells cost Sanity and Temporary ability damage to cast. And are there some big bang spells here. Would you like to call your deity? Only 20 Wis damage and 1d10 Sanity. However rules are provided for dealing with multiple casters of a spell. A nice section that has plenty of adventure fodder in it.Chapter 8 - Creatures: Note to PCs don't try to fight this things, just run, very far and very fast. This is an evil DMs dream. The mosters in this section could scar someone for life ( not just the PCs but their players too!) Even the measly zombies (Animated Corpses) have punch to them. Attention was given to Lovecraft's monsters and they all seem to be very faithful to their literary sources. Every monster has an associated Sanity loss. There are even templates; Chosen of Hastur, Cult Sorcerer, Ghost, Loup-Garou (Scary werewolf),and Mummy. One excellent aspect is the example templates are in fact fully developed NPCs you can pop into your campaign. For example the greater mummy is an Egyptian Priestess that poses as a modern day medium.Chapter 9 - The Cthulhu Mythos: Lovecraft for Dummies. Tells a newcomer what they need to know about the Mythos. Also gives guidelines for making new books, gods and monsters, and dark secrets. Chapter 10 - The Gamemaster: Details on making the atmosphere, running the game and experience awards. Since CoC is not combat focused the XP is given based on DM determined story goals. This is a great way to give XP in a game where several sessions could have little to no combat.Chapter 11 - Stories: Advice on creating adventures, campaigns, and tons of good DM advice. I love the flowchart concept they suggest here and it is personally how most of my adventures are organized.Chapter 12 - Settings: Another masterpiece section gives story ideas for every decade from 1890 to 2000. Not only that but each decade is broken into subgeneres; Lovecraft Country, Hometown Horrors, Private Troubleshooters, Badges and Secrets, Esoteric Orders, and Global Hot Spots. Every story idea references the story, TV show, or movie that it is based on so you can go to the source for further ideas.Adventures: There are two low-level adventures included that I haven't read fully. The first takes place in a nicely mapped theater and the second in a sleep research clinic.Appendix - Lovecratian D&D campaigns: The Appendixes of this book are some of the best parts of this book starting with this one. Full of ideas on how to use Lovecraft material in your campaign it also includes conversion notes for the book's creatures and spells into a D&D campaign. It discusses how hardened advetureres would be effected by Sanity. Finally, my favorite part, it gives Sanity losses for what looks like every single monster in the Monster Manual. Appendix - Dieties and Great Old Ones: Full stat write-ups for every Cthulhu Mythos diety from Azathoth to Yig. I mean Granted Domains, Hit Dice, Attacks, Special Attacks, everything. These things are (as they should be) incredibly powerful. Azathoth tops the CR scale at 50. I've read in playtesting Cthulhu killed 13 20th-level characters, 6 at a time, before being imprisoned. Full attention is given to the worship of these gods giving much campaign material. Appendix - A Brief Conversion System: A very brief Chaosium to d20 conversion. I haven't read the old RPG but this looks like a barebones conversion. There is a full skill conversion sidebar.Appendix - Recommended Reading List: 2 pages full of horror stories you should read to get into the Lovercraft and Horror mood.Sample Characters: 4 smaple 1st level charactersIndex: Full complete indexCharacter Sheet: A character sheet based off the one in the PHB. Just needs more space for weapons and a slot for wealth, but otherwise very useful.Overall Impression: I can't say how much I think of this book. By far this is the best d20 book I own (and I own way too many =D ). The layout and artwork are beatiful. They use quotes from Mythos stories throughout the book to great effect. Even if you don't want to play Call of Cthulhu this book would be great for those seeking to make a darker campaign by adding the Sanity rules and Monsters. A devious D&D campaign would involve only the gods from this book, truly that would be a dark world. Even the cover of this book is awesome. Complete firearms rules, a scare your PCs magic system, a skill and feat based psychic system, and so much more. This book earns a 5 and thrashes all other d20 books the way Redgar gets beat by Cthulhu in much aforementioned favorite picture on p. 285.If you got all the way to this point in the review I like to thank you for reading it and say I hope it is useful to you. Now I'll shamelessly plug my comic from my college newspaper ( entropyinaction.150m.com ) and apolgize for my 3 AM spelling errors. =D</blockquote>

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