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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="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2010344" data-attributes="member: 1129">Cromagh's Guide to Goblinoids focuses on goblins in the d20 setting. By goblin, I don't mean kobold or orc, but goblin, hobgoblin and bugbear. The book doesn't have a lot of competition. From Mongoose we have one of their first books, the Slayer's Guide to Hobgoblins and from Kenzer, an impressive Strength and Honor. Where does Cromagh's Guide fall?Somewhere in the middle. While the Slayer's Guide didn't have any player crunch and Strength and Honor does, this book is part player resource, part GM resource. The introduction gives some broad strokes to religion and basic information to the goblin races but it's in Chapter One, Monstrous Heroes, that the book starts to show its personality.The new feats help both GMs and Players as even low level goblins may have feats. Take Bolt, a feat that allows the goblin to change his initiative if certain conditions are met in order to escape combat. How about Scrimshaw Spell, where the caster uses bones to scribe his spells similar to Scribe Scroll? While note a huge equipment section, there are new weapons like the snare pole, a combo of garrote and mancatcher and the throwing blade, a weapon that's difficult to remove from a wound due to the fact that it's all blade, no handle.The strength of this chapter though, rests on the prestige classes.  There are six prestige classes; bugbear huntmaster, bugbear scout, goblin scrimshader, goblin trapsmith, hobgoblin kickfighter, hobgoblin warlord. All of the names are indicative of what the class is save the scrimshader. The scrimshader is a goblin spellcaster who scribes their spells on bones. Each one is a full ten level class. Most seem balanced but I'd watch the scrimsahder who gains levels in spellcasting ability in addition to a large number of abilities and the hobgoblin warlord who gets bonus feats and special command abilities. The section is written well for the most part, but every time sneak attack is discussed, it goes into too much detail instead of just stating, “As Bugbear Huntmaster Sneak Attack.” I don't need three paragraphs each time the sneak attack feature is mentioned. By giving each race two PrCs, the GM insures that encounters never have to be standard again.So now that the players are happy, what about the GM? There are several sample encounters and NPC's to flesh out the campaign. The encounters are laid out and easy to use with squared off maps and descriptions. Each one includes the reaction of the goblinoids present, as well as a modified encounter level. Most GMs  will enjoy the NPCs as either stock encounters or specialized ones. There are two NPCs per race, presented at two levels per NPC. These NPCs tie into the notes that Cromagh makes thought the text and are the 'icon's illustrated in the book. It would've been nice to see standard combat listing and a master CR list.The book is done in the standard two column format. Cromagh's comments are amusing but don't appear often enough, much like when Malhavok speaks in the various Malhavok Books. I'd almost rather seen his comments at the start of each section but I guess then you'd have to worry about overdoing it. Art is good, done by the same artists who did the cover, Clarence Harrison. As a matter of fact, that cover is repeated inside as well.Editing was fairly good but I worry about how slow the author must think his readers are. “Sklorbet is a real terror on the battlefield- especially if she takes opponents by surprise and has a chance to open up with her bow.” Uh, what rogue like character isn't? OGL has all characters, their descriptions, likeness, discourses and histories as PI while the non-PI from chapter 1 and 2, meaning to me at least, the feats, monster stats and traps, are open.To get a four star rating, all I need are race stats. It's hard to have a book that talks about using the main race as a PC if there are no racial stats. I hate how Green Ronin's Wrath and Rage went into all this detail about orcs without having orc racial stats. I hate it here too. It immediately makes the book less useful as a player when I have to either ask the GM what my racial stats are (modified from the DMG), or use a third party book like AEG's Monsters, or the Kingdoms of Kalamar for hobgoblin or half-hobgoblin stats.To get a five star rating, the book would have to kick up the player features a notch. This means spells, domains and some racial variants of the goblinoids. How about a hobgoblin artifact or something? How about bonus effects for scrimshaw spells depending on what bone its written on? Would a magic missile be more effective if cared onto a dragon's skull? How about some alternative core classes or rules for using some of the PrCs here as Core Classes? For example, the Scrimshander, a spellcaster who uses bones, looks just ripe for such a conversion.Cromagh's Guide is a good start and I'm hoping that future books will feature even more commentary by the mighty half-orc in addition to more useful features.</blockquote>

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