E.N. Guilds Monster Hunters' Guild

[Crothian]

Written by: Aeryn Rudel
Art by: Michael Franchina and Hunter McFalls

Available in Print and in PDF!

“Monsters are everywhere, a plague to both peasant and king alike. They battle foes in the forlorn depths of dungeons, the untamed wilderness beyond our fragile bubble of civilization, and, most insidiously, within the very cities that offer us sanctuary.

“Surcease from this dire threat often comes in the form of doughty adventurers, brave souls who, for want of renown or simply treasure, confront monstrous beasts for the benefit of civilization.

“Unfortunately, adventurers are often difficult to find, ill prepared, untimely, or just as likely to end up on a monster’s menu as an unskilled commoner. In addition, adventurers come in all flavors of moral direction, and those beseeching aid from a passing band of heroes may end up with a threat more dangerous than the monster itself.

“So what are those beleaguered by beasts to do? Where can one find a professional? Where are those well versed in the ecology of monsters? Those who are well studied in the obscure lore of bestial weaknesses, with the resources and skills to find and slay even the most dangerous of creatures?

“The answer is, of course, at the local Monster Hunters’ guild house.”

From E.N. Publishing comes the third book in the E.N. Guilds series, plunging you into a guild of studying and hunting monsters. E.N. Guild books bring you a resource of knowledge and crunchy rules. This third fully-bookmarked pdf venture into the secrets of fantasy guilds brings you 31 pages of material ready to use instantly. This e-book includes:

* A detailed overview of the Monster Hunters Guild, introducing the Beast Hunters and the Lore Keepers.
* A new variant for Knowledge and Knowledge Synergies involving monsters.
* Two new prestige classes.
* Three new spells, four new magic items, one new artifact, and a god.

 

[Ace]

Disclaimer: I received a review copy

EN Publishing's new PDF Monster Hunters Guild is an interesting sort of PDF I have been seeing a lot more of lately, the plug in. The PDF details a monster hunting organization meant to work in most any campaign.

Appearance:
EN Guild monsters hunters guild comes in a 3 megabyte zip file with both a black and white printable and a nicely bookmarked color onscreen version. Its 35 pages long and well illustrated.
The internal art and the faintly Greek themed cover are both good. The layout is easy to use. The first page has a nice short index

Contents
The book is divided into 4 chapters. One thing to note its mostly 'fluff" text so if you are looking for a lot more feats and the like this might not be the book for you. There are feats and spells but the focus of the book is the organization itself and how to us it.

Chapter one:
The first chapter is the guild overview. It gives a DM everything he or she might want on how to run a monster hunters guild.
Its not just general guidelines but a specific guild layout that is generic enough for most games. Nicely it even includes a list of fees based on the CR. I found this quite clever though out of wack when compared to spell casting costs. That’s not really a show stopper though.

Chapter two
This chapter is the secrets of the guild and is decently crunchy. It contains a monster lore skill (and a how to use it) 3 new feats (abiding puncture which allow you to leave a weapon in the wound for extra damage-- great with harpoons or the like) bring down the beast ( a trip augmenting feat) and a scentless feat. There is also a page or so on monster hunting techniques and sample party make ups.

Chapter three
Chapter three contains 2 prestige classes, the excellent if oddly named Ward Thief which can steal an opponents magic defenses, and the Beast Slayer of Morganon . The Beast Slayer of Morganon which is a kind of spell equipped Holy Monster Slayer that ties into the monster hunting deity included in the book. These are decently balanced and look fun to play


Chapter 4
Chapter 4 is all about the magic. It has 3 new spells (Foul Flesh, Crushing Net of Morganon and Trip) some notes on magic weapons and a couple of cool magic items. The biggest problem I found in this section is the fact that the lesser bane effect was left out of the printable version. No big deal though a tiny bit annoying. This chapter wraps up with an artifact (Blackdyrges Bestiary) and a well detailed new religion, that of Morganon the Beast slayer, a good monster hunting god.

The last part of the book is the OGL

This book offers a broad range of options for most campaigns and if your game needs an excuse to slay monsters and take their stuff or you need a few adventure seeds this PDF just might provide it.

 

[Pinotage]

E.N.Guilds: Monster Hunters' Guild

E.N. Guilds: Monster Hunters' Guild is a pdf product from E.N. Publishing, the third in E.N. Publishing's Guild Series. Written by Aeryn Rudel, Monster Hunters' Guild features a fully detailed guild devoted to monster hunting and monstrous lore to insert into your campaign, including background, guild organisation, new prestige classes, feats and spells. This pdf has a page count of 35 pages, 1 page devoted to OGL declarations, 1 page to the cover, and 1 page to a table of contents and the credits, leaving 32 pages to detail the guild itself. E.N. Guilds: Monster Hunters' Guild normally retails on RPGNow for $4.95.

Initial Impressions:

This product comes in two different versions, both fully bookmarked - a color onscreen version and a black and white print version. The art, by Michael Franchina and Hunter McFalls, and layout is good, with some effective pieces, although some of the art is reused in places by cutting sections from the larger art image, and I didn't find the background color, a pale green, attractive. Nevertheless, from an art and layout perspective, it was well done, and looked solid overall. It was, however, riddled with errors in the writing, despite having four editors listed, with errors such as class's and aGMittance and similar popping out too frequently, particularly in the use of the possessive case.

Monster Hunters' Guild made for a good read, though. It's a solid pdf, mechanically well detailed, and there's not a lot missing there on that front that could've been done. The pdf details the history of the guild, its inner machinations or benefits for members, skills and feats that members may learn, prestige classes they can take, as well as their own minor deity that the guild members worship. The prestige classes and other mechanics are well done, appear balanced, and require almost no additional work. By all accounts, this is exactly what it appears to be, a guild that can seamlessly be slotted into any campaign world. I was a bit concerned about the lack of suggestions or guidelines for inserting this guild into your campaign world and how to make the most effective use of this material, probably one of the things missing from an otherwise complete pdf.

The Details:

The pdf starts off with a brief introduction, detailing the nature of the guild - contract monster hunting and provision of monster lore. It's here that I would've liked to see more information that would allow one to use this material effectively, and allow the PCs to have meaningful interaction with the guild so that it actually sees game time rather than something that's just inserted for flavor. Some suggestion along these lines would've been a good addition to this product, although creative DMs should have little problems coming up with inspirational use on their own.

Chapter 1: This chapter provides an overview of the guild, its membership requirements, hierarchies, functions and history. The guild consists of two factions - the beast hunters and the lore keepers - both working together to hunt, capture or kill monsters. Within each of these factions various leadership hierarchies are described, as well as typical membership requirements, benefits of membership and apprenticeship to the guild. The chapter closes with detailed information on monster hunting contracts, working out their cost, and includes details on using the guild for consulting or even personal research in their extensive library. Overall this is a solid chapter, detailing everything that is needed to run the guild, and doing well at it.

Chapter 2: New skills and feats are detailed in this chapter. A Knowledge (monstrous) skill is described that offers more in-depth information on monsters to those that are learnt from the other Knowledge skills. I think this is a useful addition to complement the existing Knowledge skill set, and offers a way to avoid metagaming from experienced players that know the ins and outs of all the creatures they face. Three new feats are presented - Abiding Puncture (allows a character to leave his weapon stuck in a creature to inflict additional damage each round), Bring down the Beast (makes it easier to trip larger creatures) and Scentless (exactly what the name says), all mechanically sound and fitting in well with the monster hunter theme. The final parts of this chapter are devoted to the techniques used by beast hunters and lore keepers to go about their monster hunting business, and the typical parties assembled by the guild depending on the CR of the creature to be hunted.

Chapter 3: Two prestige classes are presented in this chapter, the Ward Thief and the Beast Slayer of Morgannan, the guild's personal diety. The Ward Thief is a stealer of monster abilities, such as damage reduction or energy resistance, and the Ward Thief can use this to bestow the abilities on himself and at later levels on his allies. It's a good solid class with nice opportunities, although I'd even be tempted to use it outside the confines of the monster hunters' guild itself. The Beast Slayer of Morgannan is a speciality warrior devoted to the guild's own deity, Morgannan. Beast Slayers gain a number of abilities that aid them in fighting monsters, and can bestow abilities such as Bane on their weapons to combat different types of creatures. Like the Ward Thief, this is a solid class, and well balanced.

Chapter 4: The final chapter is devoted to magic items, both new and those that are typically found on beast hunters as they go about their business of killing or capturing monsters. Three new spells - Foul Flesh (make a creature with a bite attack think twice about biting you), Trip (trip a creature) and Crushing Net or Morgannan (creates a magical net that entangles and crushes opponents) - are given, and these are useful spells to any adventuring party. The new magic items include such items as Lesser Bane Weapons, the Bane Ring and the Staff of Subduing, all having abilities described by their names. Lastly, Morgannan himself is described with a brief details on the deity, his dogma, typical temples and other small details.

Mechanically this is a very solid pdf. I think that most DMs and players can find a lot of use of the material contained here, even outside the confines of the guild itself if desired. From a campaign perspective, this will make an interesting addition as a well detailed guild, but lacks the perhaps some campaign advice or suggestions of how to make the most use of it once inserted, apart from the occasional visit to collect monstrous lore. Other than that and the numerous errors in the writing, this was a good pdf and leaves very little out in the details.

Conclusions:

E.N. Guilds: Monster Hunters' Guild details a guild devoted to monstrous lore and monster hunting. It provided an excellently detailed guild, and has very solid mechanics and guild background details. I'd have liked to see more flavor text in the pdf, perhaps even some plot hooks or advice on using the material in the pdf, as there's nothing that really entices me to use it beyond the crunchy bits, but otherwise it's a good addition for those wanting to add a little more detail to their campaign worlds. After all, adventurers aren't always handy to deal with encroaching monsters. Based on the mechanically solid pdf, the complete details provided, but lack of enticing material and usage guidelines, and also the numerous errors I'd give this an average grade of three stars.

 

[Wystan]

EN-Guild: Monster Hunters Guild

Title: EN-Guild: Monster Hunters Guild
Price: @$5.00
Author: Aeryn Rudel

First I need to start with an apology, I got this to review about 1 month before I wrote this. I was on vacation and had other issues pop up.

Now onto the review (On a scale of 1 to 5; I will rate each section and then join them.):

Art:
Cover Art: I like this; it is an evocative picture and portrays the image of searching. I do feel that the main character in the image is too hunched over, but otherwise it is a very good image. 4
Interior Art: Slightly scarce, some re-used images (the cover is reused on page 18). However it is very nice art, not photo-realistic, but again it evokes the correct feeling and makes you more drawn to the background. 3.5
Over all Art: 4 (3.75)

Purpose:
This book is mainly a GM book, it does have a small use for players, but even if they are in the guild mentioned they should not have all of the information. The sections are well done and give the history, purpose, and plans of the guild. They explain where they would be and the normal order of the guild-houses. They also explain why there are two separate branches in an understandable way.
Overall Purpose: 4

Skill, Feats, etc:
Page 13 is of most importance to the GM in my opinion as this is the table that gives the general fees charged for monster hunting. They also have a new skill starting on page 16 that expands on the knowledge skill. The new feats are interesting and allow some diversity in fighters as well as a new 1st level feat that grants an unusual bonus. The techniques section is unusual in that it basically shows that the book cannot be used to generate an adventuring party. The Monster hunting parties have too disparate of a level difference. On average, 1 - high level, 2-5 – medium level, and 1 or more lower level as well. This does not allow for a cohesive party.
Over all Etc: 3 (due to non-compatibility with the general party system)

New Toys and Classes:

Classes: There are 2 new prestige classes added via this book and they both require membership in the monster hunter’s guild. They are the ‘Ward Thief’ and the ‘Beast Slayer of Morgannan’; they are both specialized and require an 8-skill point expenditure in the new knowledge skill presented. They do not explain how to gain the skill, as it is not by default on any class list. The ‘Ward Thief’ steals special abilities from its enemies and shares them with its allies. The ‘Beast Slayer’ gains special abilities against specific enemies. (They are also both casters in some way, the ‘Ward Thief’ granting bonus to existing classes and the ‘Beast Slayer’ having it’s own progression.)
Overall Classes: 3 (Due to specialized nature and usefulness)

Toys/Magic: 3 new spells, 3 new items, 1 new weapon property, 1 new god, and 1 artifact.
Spells: 1 Divine, 1 Arcane, 1 Shared, all lvl 3 or less. These are unique utility spells, 1 that stops things from wanting to eat you, and 2 that assist in capture of things.
Overall Spells: 4 (uniqueness)

Items: 1 Armor, 1 ring, 1 staff. Nothing really new here. The prices, while correct are too high for the bonus’s granted. I like the ideas, but they are basically just items built with old ideas.
Overall Items: 2.5

Weapon Property: Lesser Bane, a cheaper Bane property that falls under a lower price structure. Interesting, but almost seems like it was built for the character that wants bane, but not at banes price.
Overall Weapon Properties: 2 (sort of new idea, not ground breaking)

Artifacts: Special set of books that confer a bonus to a set of skills and abilities for a limited time. They are re-usable and non-depleting.
Overall Artifacts: 4.5 (interesting way to add bonus’s for studying)

New Deity: Morgannan, the one mentioned in the new prestige class. Strange take on a deity. Seems specially created for the monster hunter’s guild, as its portfolio is the following: “The eradication of evil monsters, hunting, the Monster Hunters’ guild”. The temples are the guildhalls, the priests are guild members, they do mention that a small number of followers do not belong to the guild.
Overall New Deity: 3(un-original)

Conclusion: As weird as it seems, I loved this book. I feel it has a lot of Story and could be made into a workable guild for the players to be with. It would be like a special mercenary troupe that allows them to contract out to kill beasties and such. I personally give it a 5 for enjoyment.
Personal Rating: 5

Overall Score: 3 (3.25)