Devilish Devices

[JoeGKushner]

Devlish Devices is a 128 page hardcover devoted to showcasing fifty different items that have a sinister origin or use in the d20 system.

It starts off with a blank page. It goes onto a black and white version of the cover. It moves onto a page of credits. Then the next page is the table of contents. Here we see that there are Pendants, Tankards and Glasses, Jewelry, Implements of Torture, Figurines, Miscellany, Prestige Classes and Game Statistics. A Preface and Introduction prepare the book for reading.

Before the book gets started though, there is a full page illustration of a pendant. This is full page illustration is repeated for each chapter afterwards. After the illustration, a group of items is described. Each description starts off with the game details and a background story. Some of them like Aegle's Touch are a single page, which is good. You get the game stats, and a very brief background story, with an illustration. Main problem here is that under the Caster Level, we don't have a caster cost to create in terms of gold and experience points, just a Market Price value. Illustrations almost look like they were touched up photoshop photos instead of drawings.

For me, the main problem comes with material like Disk of the Clan of Man. The Disk only takes up two paragraphs, the short story, four pages. Four pages of fiction for a single item. Not the only time this happens either. I know for an item as mighty sounding as the Tankard of Pure Death we need four more pages devoted to its back story. No wait, we don't.

Layout is standard two columns. Some of the art comes from www.clipart.com. Now if I put this book together that might be understandable, but in a professional hardcover that runs $24.95, I expect a little something more.

One of the things I feel awful about is the editors inability to count. Under prestige classes, we have the following: Court Seer, Dragon Hunter, Learned Scholar, Life Giver, Religious Elder and Tribal Lieutenant. The section starts off “What follows are four new prestige classes that are in some ways linked to one of the items in the book.” No, what follows are six prestige classes. The classes themselves aren't a bad mix but GMs will have to playtest the material. For example, the court seer continues to gain spells as a standard character and a special ability at each level. Since one of the abilities gained at many levels is a secret, it's not too bad, but the class gains six skill point per level, as opposed to the two that wizards normally gain.

The Dragon Hunter gains some immunity from the spells and breath weapons of different dragons as the advance as well as a lot of exotic weapon proficiencies. Why? Is there something necessary in the exotic field that makes for better dragonslaying? Definitely not the last word in dragon hunting PrCs.

The learned scholar is similar to the court seer with secrets being one of the abilities, as well as Lore and True Lore being abilities gained. In many cases, if the GM allows both classes, most players will just take the court seer as it gains an ability every level.

The Life Giver has its own spell progression with the spells listed out in alphabetical order at the end of the section. It also gains some minor abilities like Brew Potion, Mix Antidote and Mix Cure. An interesting class that might work better off as an NPC due to the heavy emphasis on healing without too much combat use.

The Religious Elder is designed for the cleric who wants to move through the heirarchy of the church, gaining spells and abilities at each level, but only gaining 1d6 hit die per level.

Lastly, the Tribal Lieutenant is a hardy warrior style PrC with 1d12 hit die, perfect for any barbarian, that gains bonus feats in addition to special abilities.

The game statistics in the appendix cover the NPCs and monsters associated with the material.

The open game license takes two pages and the last page is an ad for the Demon Wars setting coming out for the d20 system.

The book uses the standard FFE OGL declaration. Anything that's already OGL remains so, everything else, private id. It does make mention of baatezu and tanari'ri, although I think those terms themselves are PI.

Okay, let's do a quick breakdown here. 128 page book, nothing on page 1 and 2, copy of the cover on page 3, credits page, contents page, preface page, introduction page, eight full page illustrations, two pages for the OGL, one page for ads. That's eighteen pages that could've been broken down to oh, say four, six if you want to be generous. Add in the love of fiction that some of the writers have and the lack of caster cost, and you have another mediocre book that some will love and others like myself do not.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This is a d20 reference sourcebook detailing a variety of powerful magical items, each steeped in dark lore and stories of ancient evils. Marvelous stories and rich background information make each of these items far more than simple treasure, but the basis for entire adventures or campaigns. These are wondrous devices in every sense of the word!

 

[Psion]

Devilish Devices

Devilish Devices is a supplement by Fast Forward Entertainment presenting new artifact-style items for use in the game, much in the same vein as FFE's Items of Power series of books. The book's contributing designers include John Cassie, Jarad Fennell, Eric Haddock, Timothy Kidwell, Timothy O'Brien, Christoffer Trossen, and James M. Ward.

A First Look

Devilish Devices is a 128-page hardcover book priced at $24.99 US. For this price, B&W hardbounds of this price are historically thicker (176 pages for books by FFG and as much as 256 page by White Wolf published books), but prices are trending up for those thicker books. Also worth noting is that FFE's current hardbounds aren't any more expensive that softbound books of the same size.

The cover of the book has the FFE signature red grainy background. The front cover picture, by William W. Connors, appears to be a computer generated picture of a sword with a circular handguard laying atop several papers depicting items in the book.

The interior is black and white. William W. Connors is credited as the interior artist. Most of the interior images appear to be computer-processed images of photos. Much of the remaining art is clipart of the same sort that has been used in other FFE books.

The interior body font text is conservatively sized, and the line and paragraphs are closely spaced, yielding a good amount of content per page. However, the beginning of each section starts with a full page with nothing but the section title and an unattractive touched up photo.

A Deeper Look

The bulk of Devilish Devices is new magic items. In addition to the items, the book has a chapter introducing new prestige classes and a game statistics appendix. Unlike prior items books by Fast Forward, Devilish Devices does not separate the game statistics of the magic items from the fictional text. The only thing in the game mechanics appendix is statistics for creatures mentioned in the stories.

The items are sorted by type into 6 chapters: pendants, tankards and glasses, jewelry, implements of torture, figurines, and miscellany.

Each item includes around 1/4 to a full column of game statistics and power descriptions. The remaining 1-4 pages are fiction related to the item. The fiction is generally well written and relates the story behind the item. The fiction is generally well written, but I found some of the concepts and stories in Wondrous Items of Power (like those of the Fetish of the Thunderer Talisman and the Terpsichorean Charm talisman) to be a bit more copelling.

Unlike many of the previous item books, many of the items in this book are actually not artifacts, but standard magic items. This is a stride forward, as it creates more items that GMs will be willing to put in their campaigns, which are just as deserving of background as artifacts are. The item statistics for the standard magic items include d20 statistics like caster level and crafting prerequisites, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, artifacts are still lacking caster levels, which is pertinent for the purposes of resolving spell effects.

The book introduces six new prestige classes used by NPCs introduced in the book:

-Court Seer: The court seer is essentially an arcane spellcaster that gathers secrets through scrying. The seer gain lore similar to the way that a loremaster does, though their secrets aren't seemingly as potent as a loremaster's. Their abilities also optimize their scrying, and they progress as a spellcaster at the full rate. Overall the class seems balanced, playable, and true to the concept. The only problem is that the BAB is off by one level of what is normal for poor BAB advancement.
-Dragon Hunter: The Dragon Hunter is a good fighter equipped with special abilities that defend them against and helps them track dragons. Dragons hunters also receive an exotic weapon proficiency every odd level. This latter feature is never explained. If there was some sort of special weapons that Dragon hunters use that these proficiencies would be used for, that would have been beneficial to know, but the proficiencies aren't mentioned anywhere other than the class table.
-Learned Scholar: The learned scholar is fundamentally similar to the Court Seer and Loremaster, so much so that I consider this class somewhat redundant. The only thing that distinguishes this class from those two in flavor is that the character is not required to be a spellcaster. However, the learned scholar does gain spellcasting levels if the character was a spellcaster before, but apparently, character who were not spellcasters do not gain any spellcasting abilities, making this class a much weaker choice for some possible entrants.
-Life Giver: The life giver is a sort of dedicated healer. The life giver gets spells, primarily healing spells, including extra healing spells much like a domain. The class is a weak fighter, making it much like a poor man's cleric at low levels. However, this class has very liberal entry requirements, allowing a character to enter the class at third level. However, the Life Giver gains access to high level spells like true ressurection by 10th level. So by 12th level, the character has a class normally denied to clerics of less than 18th level. I doubt many players will want to enter this class, but including this class in a campaign could seriously change the kilter of the campaign.
-Religious Elder: The religious elder is a senior member of an organized church, with class abilities relating to the congregation and the organization, such as the ability to call on favors. Though seemingly primarily targeted at cleric, like the Life Giver, you can enter this class early and you don't gain its spellcasting abilities if you weren't already a spellcaster. Much like the court seer, the BAB progression is apparently calculated wrong.
-Tribal Lieutenant: Tribal Lieutenants are leaders in primitive cultures. The tribal lieutenant is a strong fighter, and has class abilities focused on protecting the chieftan of a tribe.

The mechanics chapter provides stat blocks for creatures mentioned in the main text. The stat blocks are generally solid. However, like Enchanted Locations: Tombs & Crypts, this book had statistics blocks for creatures pulled from the Monster Manual II. This surprised me as this is exactly what got Enchanted Locations: Crypts & Tombs in trouble with WotC for license violations. Whether this means that WotC is turning a blind eye to this one or if they merely aren't aware of this book, I don't know. But if you are concerned about this book disappearing, you may want to grab a copy now.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a fairly decent book. If you liked the "Items of Power" series, there is generally more here to like. The text is denser (albeit the book is about 30 pages smaller for $1 less), the statistics are more complete and thus easier to implement than in the earlier books, and the arrangement is a little more convenient.

However, I wasn't as taken in by the stories and concepts as I was by some of those in Wondrous Items of Power. And if you (like me) think that gaming products are not well served by such a high ratio of fiction, then you will probably not like this book much more than previous books. Finally, compared to two books that came out at the same time and several books that have come out since, the presentation is sort of lackluster, much as with the older Items of Power books.

Overall Grade: C-

-Alan D. Kohler