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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010537" data-attributes="member: 18387">By Glenn Dean, Staff ReviewerSizing Up the TargetEncyclopaedia Arcane: Crossbreeding is written by Johnathan Richards (of Gorgoldand’s Gauntlet fame) and published by Mongoose Publishing. Subtitled “Flesh and Blood”, this 64-page softcover sourcebook retails for $14.95.First BloodEncyclopaedia Arcane: Crossbreeding is the thirteenth volume in Mongoose’s Encyclopaedia Arcane series, and appropriate to that number Games Masters will find a coven of frightening ideas within its pages. If you’ve ever wondered how the owlbear was created, or where the chimera, dragonne, or hippogriff came from, Crossbreeding provides the answers.Crossbreeding provides rules for player character wizards and NPCs to create magical hybrid creatures by crossing virtually any type of creature (except for constructs and undead) with virtually any other type of creature. These are permanently new species, not just polymorphed creatures – the player or GM can use Crossbreeding to come up with entirely new species of creatures to populate the campaign world.The basic creation mechanics are fairly simple. The final creature is a rough average of the base creatures. Crossbreeding provides methods for determining the hybrid’s final statistics for each line of the standard monster stat block. The wizard then selects a crossbreeding ritual, each of which has certain prerequisites, magical preparation requirements, and effect upon the difficulty of the cross. The actual ritual results in a skill check, whose difficulty is determined by the size and types of the hybridizing creatures. Practice makes perfect -- a poor crossbreeding attempt can result in creatures with deficiencies that range from minor to crippling. Crossbreeding provides a step-by-step example for the entire process from start to finish that a wizard could follow to create a new spidertoad familiar. There are also advanced crossbreeding techniques, like a reverse hybridizing process, or the multi-stage crossbreed that can be used to create creatures like the chimera. Six new magic items that can be used in crossbreeding experiments are also included.About half of the book is devoted to a wide range of example creatures, a total of 21 of them. Some of my favorites include the Barbazaur (a sort of demon-centaur based on a nightmare), the Drakkanal (think fire-lizard), the Fisher Tress (a nasty combination of a roper and a treant), the Mud Elemental, the extremely bizarre Ooze Hound, the Psionaga, the silly Slithertoad, and the Worgoblin (who takes goblin cavalry to a whole new level).Critical HitsCrossbreeding provides GMs and players with an excellent tool. One of the great things about the presented mechanics is that they really don’t create anything new – these are core feats and skills that are applied and combined in interesting ways. No worries about strange and unbalancing feats to keep up with here. For the GM, this provides an almost infinite variety of new monsters. Need a new, unusual, and challenging creature for your campaign? Pick two or three creatures at random, and then combine them using Crossbreeding’s techniques. You’ll definfitely have something that will surprise your players.Critical MissesCrossbreeding does make a couple of odd choices. While the focus on wizards is fairly traditional, I would think that there might be room for a similar discussion of evil druids as fantasy crossbreeders. Applications of the Handle Animal skill, which one would think should be part of this sort of thing, are also conspicuously absent.While the mechanics are extremely simple, they are almost too simple. There is no mechanism to track and balance creature special abilities – everything is based on size and creature type. While the size penalties will keep the tarrasque-crossbreeds under control, there needs to be some way of balancing special abilities. An ogre-hill giant mix, for example, isn’t too different in difficulty than a troll-black dragon hybrid, though the latter is probably significantly more dangerous. A great deal of GM judgment is required to ensure the stats of the final crossbreed come out balanced – carelessness can result in extremely powerful creatures with a Challenge Rating too low for their abilities.Coup de GraceEncyclopaedia Arcane: Crossbreeding provides some original applications of game mechanics as Open Content, with the rest of the text as product identity. Though there are a few challenges to balance the results, Games Masters in particular will find the results of monster hybridization will provide them with an almost infinite set of new monsters, meaning that from one point of view this is the best-valued monster book on the market.To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=315" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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