Has anyone posted a review of Tome of Secrets?

malkav666

First Post
My googlefu seems to be out of batteries. If there is a review up I cannot seem to find it.

Has anyone seen a review? Or does anyone have this book in PDF yet and care to offer commentary. I am thinking very strongly of getting the PDF, but I was hoping to read a review first. Any help would be appreciated.

love,

malkav
 

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I bought the PDF because I wanted Chase rules. My guys always seem to be chasing (usually) or running away from (not so usual) something and the Chase preview at Paizo was interesting. The Chase rules are pretty darn good and I will be incorporating them into my game.

As far as the rest, don't need no stinkin new races or classes or .... But that is just me. I have finally weaned my guys from the 3.0/3.5 glut of Complete This and Race of That, and don't want to go back. Although they are interesting, just not for my game.

-- david
Papa.DRB
 

I just bought it, so no in-depth read yet. However, the quick skim-through looked very nice. Variant shaman & warlock takes and what appear to be Knight and Warlord (Marshall) classes that are superior to their 3.5 WotC counterparts (IMO, obviously). The Knight is the best Knight core class I've seen since the Cavalier's Handbook.

Races seemed decent. Items of interest to me, not must-haves.

Pathfinder backgrounds & drawbacks look good. Will require a full read-through before I form an opinion on them, however.

There's also some polished/updated rules like Shock-n-Awe (Morale) & Hot Pursuit (chases).

I didn't get a chance to skim the latter chapters yet.

First Impression: Solid Pathfinder supplement with lots to like. $9.99 is a steal for a book of this size.
 
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From what people have said on the Paizo boards, several new classes break the link between BAB and HD.

Some people care about this, but it doesn't bother me.
 


I suppose I can give a sort of mini review. Nothing in depth, no deep looks at mechanics unless something appears quite out of whack. Just the big view.

Races:
Ratkin and Saurian seem well enough. Ratkin make for a good sneaky-folk race, with a more stealth-oriented emphasis then elves or halflings both fluff wise and mechanically - good rogues and swashbucklers. Saurian fit the "dying ancient people" trope fairly well, and I can see them appearing in games.

Half ogre are way, way too much, mechanically speaking. There's simply no reason to be a martial class of any other race. I'm not all BALANCE IS ALL or anything, but they went a bit too far there.

Classes:
With the new crafting, the old artificer wasn't that neccesary, so we've got a new one, and I like it. The Mad Science ability looks like it'll be fun - and possibly hilarious! - to use, and the Jack of Trades line makes the Artificer a good factotum-lite in some ways. I can see Mad Science possibly being stupifyingly powerful later on, however, so take care there.

Knight is...well, a knight, with some new stuff. Not much to say here. I like the inclusion of some fluff-based mechanics, such as allowing you to call on the hospitality of other houses due to your reputation as a knight. Really though, I never saw a knight in game in 3.5 (the class, that is) so I don't have much to reference it too.

Priest is Cloistered Cleric. Again, not much to say.

Shaman is, well, spirit shaman. It has two major new bits - from a sidebar that states that spirits are any elemental, fey, outsider, or incorperal subtype, which gives it a nice boost, and the ability to choose one domain to take per day. Shaman also has one of those mechanical fluff bits that I love, giving it a spirit guide for the DM to use to interact with the Shaman.

Spellblade is Duskblade with a few changes. Int based spontanious casting, weapon augmentation x times a day. However, he lacks some of the things that made the duskblade so good. Overall, I'd pass on this class.

Swashbuckler has some really good changes, and is possibly my favorite of the new old classes. Increasing dodge bonus to AC that counts as the dodge feat, int to damage was replaced by a sneak attack that only works with specific weapons, bonus feats, and a bunch of other stuff. The dodge bonus, evasion/uncanny dodge trees, and other stuff help give the swashbuckler a much more fluid and movement-based feel, so you're more of a swashbuckler now then "Guy who does int to damage."

Warlock is completely different. It now utilizes school bonuses (and gets a much bigger list of school bonuses to choose from) instead of invocations and eldritch blast. I can't say it's better or worse, it's just really different. Not much I can say about it without seeing it in game, really.

Warlord is an odd one. He just doesn't seem to have enough to give him oomph. Like knight, I never saw a marshal in game, so I can't really give a reference to it, but the Warlord just doesn't seem to be able to do enough. A couple abilities that just statically raise as he goes up in level. In a way, you could say Warlord is almost a variant fighter.

Other stuff:
Drawbacks are basically the flaws of UA, only instead of feats, they give skills. Right above the "uncomly" drawback is a picture of a somewhat adorable looking halfling girl. I don't get it ;p

Occupation is "What you did before adventuring." Bonus gold, bonus class skill, maybe even a bonus feat. Personally I'd TOTALLY allow this, but would disallow occupations that give a combat-related feat, or make them change it to a skill-oriented feat. Overall designed to let your fighter have that blacksmithing skill.

I didn't give moral a big in depth look, so I can't comment there.

Stunts are basically "OH MAN CAN I USE x SKILL TO DO THIS AWESOME THING?" It's pretty simple and easy to use, and it gives players a better reason to describe their more awesome attacks. The gist is, they roll stuff, if they succeed, they get a certain type of bonus, be it an increase to attack/damage or lowering an enemy's saves by one.

Temporary enchantment is to make up for the new artificer not having infusions.

Chase rules are freaking awesome. Seriously. No details, but I can't wait to run or play through these in a game.

The "Million Magic Items" is good for designing magic items that your players will find in a dungeon, and for giving them far better names then +5 mace. I love tables with an unhealthy passion, so I loved this.

New alchemy items are always loved by me. I made it a house rule long ago that you didn't need to be a caster to make alchemical items, and Pathfinder made that rule no longer "house," so giving crafty characters more options is right up my alley.

Like moral, I didn't give monster modifier a big check.

Random adventure making...thingie, seemed interesting, but gain, didn't really look deeply at it.

The section on guns makes the same mistake many D&D games do - they're just crossbows that do more damage. Unfortunately, unless it uses 100 gold per 5 ammunition or a +2 weapon enchant, CONGRATULATIONS! Your weapon cannot attack more then once per round! Sigh.

Overall, for a $10 pdf, I'd recommend it. I don't buy many - if any - physical books these days, so I can't say how awesome that would be. Some of the art seemed damn familiar to the point where I'd swear I've seen it elsewhere on these har internets, and the styles were somewhat anachronistic at times, but I still think it's an overall good purchase.
 

I picked it up and like others, I haven't had much of a chance to go into the details. I think that like many others who jumped into the D20 glut with both feet, there are certain types of things I'm not especially looking for, those being new feats and prestige classes, but this book isn't loaded with those. The new rules systems look good so I think it's money well spent.
 

Footnote: regarding the base classes, they were developed purely for 3.5. I mention this because I realized that Daring Outlaw mixed with the new swashbuckler has the potential to give you a character with very large sneak attacks. Likewise, the new warlock is RADICALLY different from the old one, so mechanical references to the old one in previous books, uh, won't really work with the new one.
 

Where to begin. I said on Paizo's forums I wasn't going to chime in for 3pp for Pathfinder the way I had in early Third Edition and get burned. I was given some hope by others that all the companies by now had learned their lessons and the glut/bandwagon-jumping phase was over. I also wanted to show my support for the system that will carry my group forward on their so I preordered it.

Now, I'm writing these notes while in a bad mood, which isn't good. It's also not good that I woke up this morning in a good mood, and now that I have read my print copy of Tome of Secrets I'm now in this bad mood.

* The font is gigantic. It's easy to see how this book could have been half the size. Space is wasted with class charts taking up entire pages and handfuls of empty white space. The presentation isn't pretty.

* The art is just functional. Most of it is a solid 4.5. There's one or two rating around a 7 and a bunch of what look like half-finished sketches around a 1.

* The races are fine but don't interest me. They might impress your group but they contain now 'wow' factor in their text at all. 3pp burnout on my part? No doubt.

* The classes are almost exclusively cobbled together class features and feats from the PFRPG reprinted in new combinations and called new things like the Warlock and the Swashbuckler. They also use words and rule references to things that do not exist in the Pathfinder RPG. Reprinting things in completion from the core book is no way to impress.

* Chases are supposed to be quick and chaotic and exciting. I find that a rules system spaning nearly 40pages is, just...40 pages? I can't even bring my self to read them all. Why in the middle of describing a roll-about-smack-down action chase would I want to stop and consult charts, work formulas and deal with minutae? I wouldn't. You might, so they may be fun for you.

* Morale is similarly spread out over 15 pages which is simply entirely too much for a game that is moving to speed up third edition play, not bog it down in lengthy details.

* Skillful stunts just confused me. It may be very good for some groups. It tries to tack on rules for GM handwaving that come up when players try off-the-wall creative things in combat not covered by the rules. The whole point of them being fun, to me, is that they are NOT covered in the rules, not classified and codified.

* One million magic items is OK, but not for me. Randomly roll a prefix, weapon, and suffix. That's fine. Now there's rules attached to each, many of which are worded poorly or incomplete. Yes, you can have a dagger that once every two days can disintigrate a planet.

* The monster modifier and random adventurer generator are fine but of no interest to me. I have plenty of these things already. If you don't you may get utility out of this.

What do I like? I like Alchemical items. They seems creative and simple to use. I like Drawbacks and Occupations. So far they've proven well thought out and useful to the game. Their section on Flintlocks and Fantasy was a good enough read and seems useful.

It's a shame I was told in advance that this book is a whole bunch of mini PDFs that Adamant sold for 3.5 and now 'updated' because now it feels like recylced material. I picture someone using the search and replace feature to remove "3.5" and replace with "The Pathfinder RPG".

So, less than a quarter of the book will see use in my game. In general, I feel that $35 is way, way too much for this book and doesn't strive to raise any bar for others to beat. What this means is any more Pathfinder support from pretty much anyone besides well-established long-term companies will begin with zero trust from me, and that's a shame.

-DM Jeff
 

Shaman is, well, spirit shaman. It has two major new bits - from a sidebar that states that spirits are any elemental, fey, outsider, or incorperal subtype, which gives it a nice boost, and the ability to choose one domain to take per day. Shaman also has one of those mechanical fluff bits that I love, giving it a spirit guide for the DM to use to interact with the Shaman.
So he is unchanged except domain?

There was a sidebar in Complete Divine that said same thing.
 

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