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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: 2011669" data-attributes="member: 1129">Frost & Fur is another one of those products I have that is a victim of the Ennies. I received it not too long before the Ennies and then again for the Ennies. Despite reading it something like three times, I’ve been bombarded with product from the left and the right and it hasn’t gotten the review it deserves.Frost & Fur isn’t separated into chapters, but rather, it’s separated into sections. For example, Environmental Hazards, Classes, Skills & Feats. Thankfully there is a nice table of contents and an index to make moving around the work easy.The book has a heavy focus on crunch. Now I know that some have heard that there’s a lot of real world cultures here and that the main difference between this and Frostburn is that the WoTC book is focused on crunch and that this book is focused on fluff, but I’m here to tell you, that just isn’t true. This book has a heavy emphasis on crunch as well.It does a good job of providing ground rules in areas like dehydration, snow blindness and tainted water, as well as providing information on how the standard races and classes fit into this style campaign. One that I didn’t think clear was if the additional abilities races receive were just freebies or if there was some balancing factor.For example, the half-orc received the feat Hypothermic Sleep, something to help them avoid freezing to death at night, in addition to a bonus to several skills. Does this apply to a half orc who just happens to move into such an area or is it inherent? The variant subraces are broken around the various cultures latter supported in the book including Slavic, Eskimo, Ice Age, and Nordic. This gives the GM a wide option of time periods to set his campaign in and allows for the GM to even mix and match them if the characters are moving around the frozen lands. Nothing prevents them from meeting a Alfar elf at first and then a Leshii elf latter. Well, having all of those races may get a little burdensome on the campaign integrity itself but real world cultures flourish fairly close to one another and no one complains there right?The changes to the classes are minor in some instances but in others, they make an ability-by-ability change or addition. For example, rogues at 4th level don’t have to make Balance checks on ice anymore while the different types of snow and ice are broken down for purposes of Ranger Tracking. Due to the timing we don’t have the new core psionic classes covered but the originals, Psion and Psychic Warrior, are covered.  The PrCs from the DMG are mentioned, but no modifications are made.New equipment includes the everyday mundane items like food and clothing to the more desired equipment, by adventurers at least, weapons.  Weapons range from rock knives to new firearms. I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see another variant of the pistol here. I don’t see the frozen artic as being a place where guns are a thriving business, unlike the pirate haven of Freeport say. While I’m not crazy about the illustrations for the boats and armor, the weapons are done very nicely and make me want to play a fighter using a Berdysh, a massive pole arm with a huge one sided axe head attacked to it.In terms of skills and feats, old skills have notes no how best to use them in such an environment and several knew craft and knowledge skills are presented. Scrimsahw and Woodwork are detailed as crafts, but some DC checks in the skill description itself would’ve been nice.Feats are always hit and miss depending on what your campaign levels’ power is. Some of the feats I don’t see the artic connection with. For example, Behead allows you to cut off the head of an enemy if you confirm a critical hit with a natural twenty. Sure, it’s not going to happen that much, but if you have the proper feats or magic items, you can critical on a 15-20 on some weapons. I have a ground rule in my campaign. Would the players complain if they had to fight enemies with such a feat? If the answer is yes, it’s probably not appropriate for my campaign.Many of the feats are related to the frost though. For example, we have feats like Cold Resistance where you gain damage reduction against the cold or Hot-Blooded where you gain bonuses to saving throws against cold effects. The wide variety of feats allows you to build someone who can survive in the setting or with the wide variety of feats, someone who excels at combat. It’s an odd mixture that could’ve used a round of chopping to make it more specific.In terms of spell power, WoTC products have fairly spoiled me. I like a breakdown of the spells at the start of the section with a separation by class, then level, and for wizards/sorcerers, by school. This book notes some modifications of schools, and a new domain, Ice, and then moves right into the spells themselves. Some of the spells I don’t see an immediate use for. Take Animal Resurrection where you bring an animal back from the dead. Others like Avalanche and Freezing Blade seem to have a much quicker use.In an environment like this, new horrors abound. The new monsters have a nice range to them. However, the section is graphically a mess. Now I’m not saying it’s poorly illustrated as Andy Braz handles all of the illustrations and he’s one of my favorite artists. Instead, I’m saying that having monster stats start at the bottom of one page and move onto the next or having multiple monsters per page, is something people have been complaining about WoTC doing for years and to see it all cramped up here does the book no favors. Due to this layout, in some instances, you don’t know which monster goes with which illustration unless you read everything on the page. Take for example the Ice Drake that starts at the bottom of page 124 and moves onto page 125. Sure, the creature illustrated on that page is obviously the Ice Drake, but it’s right next to the text for the Kainkutho.The monsters have a nice range in levels from the deadly Iron Bear, a monstrous animal covered in iron bristles that clocks in at a CR of 10 to the Hunting Dogs that are listed at ½. Monster stats seem good for the most part. Initiative bonuses are accounted for but speed isn’t broken down into squares. Armor class is broken down by and includes touch and flat-footed and attack and full attack options are listed. Damage reduction when listed thankfully doesn’t have any references to older versions. Another tool the GM is given are toys for the player characters via magic items. The organization here is a little messy as well. Instead of having a section of items by property, we get it by culture so it starts with Nordic, moves into Eskimo than Slavic and then Ice Age. Remember that culture I was talking about at the beginning? Well, it starts off with a paragraph or so about the culture, then goes into alternative core classes and PrCs. Take the Norse, they have Godi or pagan priests, Vitki, spellcasting through singing and energy through runes, Voelva, spellcasters of Freyja, and for PrCs, Artificers, Berserkers, Glimumann (wrestling masters), Stavmester (weapon martial art masters), Jomsviking (elite warriors), and Leech (medicine man). That’s a lot of crunch for the culture, but not a lot of notes for the culture. On the downside, I wasn’t impressed by the layout or overall appearance of the book. It almost looks like there was too much here to fit into the book. One of the strengths, the writing and size of the text, make it easy to read. The interludes between the chapters are good story telling and show the GM how two different civilizations could meet and how it’s not always pleasant. However the story doesn’t always start at the beginning of each section as it sometimes starts at the bottom of the previous page making for an annoyed reader.In the end, Frost and Fur provides the game mechanics to handle many different cultures, the bones if you will, but not the meat in the form of cultural details. For those looking to recreate those different ears, that’s a great thing. For those playing a straight D&D campaign though, I’m a little unsure how best to proceed with the material. In worlds like FR where civilizations are similar to those presented here, it’s not a problem. For a setting like Valus where a lot of the material is drawn roughly from history, it’s a great resource. For something like Eberron on the other hand… well, it would require some work.Frost & Fur is a solid book that provides all the crunch for different societies and is perfect for the GM looking to flesh out some frozen corner of his setting.</blockquote>

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