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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="Pinotage" data-source="post: 2548683" data-attributes="member: 15194">E.N.Guilds: Monster Hunters' GuildE.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.</blockquote>

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