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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JBowtie" data-source="post: 2011539" data-attributes="member: 1810">NOTE: I received a free reviewer's copy.Lost Prehistorica from Dark Quest Games is a 109 page, black and white PDF. The color covers are presented in a seperate, 2-page PDF for those of use that like to print them. The main PDF comes with a good set of bookmarks, going down as far as individual feats and creatures.The entire text (sans art and d20 trademark) is designated Open Game Content.As the name implies, this book takes a good look at adventuring in prehistoric settings. If you've read classics such as Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Land That Time Forgot, or Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World then you'll immediately recognize the feeling the writers were trying to invoke (and if you haven't, these public domain texts are freely available on the web from Project Gutenburg).Obviously dinosaur fans will love this book; the real surprise for me was that a lot of the material is actually quite useful in most fantasy campaigns. DMs will get quite a lot out of this book.The first chapter launches right into integrating the setting into your campaign world, along with information to help you get the look and feel right. The information is helpful if you haven't thought about this at all, but left me feeling a little rushed and disoriented.The second chapter, on survival, jumps to diseases and natural hazards. The diseases have silly names (Blue Giggles?) but most of them have a plausible origin and symptoms. For example, "Clammy Crud" comes from eating food that has started to spoil in dungeons or caves. The hazards are well-written and useful, examples include geysers, tar pits and quicksand.The second chapter also seemed, well, abrupt. Like the first chapter, you jump right into the thick of things with the descriptions of the new diseases. The writer does not establish any context, assuming the reader knows why this section is included or important. If you're not up to speed on diseases, you're out of luck, because there is no reference to the appropriate section of the core rules, no mention or discussion of existing diseases and no explanation of how diseases work.  At the end of the chapter, the descriptions of several plants are tacked on for no apparent reason and without explanation.Chapters three and four are where the book really shines. Here we have a well-written, thoughtful presentation on the primitive society. It touches on every aspect of primitive life, including rituals, trade, clothing, and social organization. The difference between hunter-gatherer tribes and pastoral tribes is clearly explained. The distinctions between a band, a tribe, and a chiefdom are laid bare. And, if that wasn't enough, half a dozen sample tribes, ready to use, are enumerated.Chapter five covers equipment. There is a range of equipment, weapons, and armour appropriate for a stone-age level of technology; aside from some questionable prices at the higher end everything seemed quite reasonable. Notably, altars, idols, and sculptures are included in the equipment list. In a nice touch, the end of the chapter includes a table of trading gems with approximate values for the raw, unfinished gems as well as small slivers and chips. This ties in with the information from earlier chapters about trading in prehistoric communities.Chapter six, Characters, presents information useful to players. The chapter opens with a small number of feats; they did not strike me as particularly inspired but felt reasonably balanced. As a DM, I would allow them in my game but think it unlikely that anyone would actually take them. By far the most interesting part of the chapter for me was the discussion of the how the various classes fit into a 'lost world' campaign, both as a members of a tribe and as explorers. No new classes are defined.A similar tack is taken with the core races, with several subraces called out. In a welcome change from the usual practices, all of the subraces bar one use the regular racial traits. This restricts the changes to description, outlook, and background, making these variants far easier to slot into an existing campaign than is common.A number of new races have been added specifically to increase the variety of primitive humanoids available to players and DMs, including reptilian variants, cat-like variants, and ape-like variants. I personally did not find any of them memorable or inspiring, but that is likely a matter of taste. Perhaps I'm simply jaded after seeing so many humanoid races over the last couple of years; they all seem to blur together after a while. That said, they all were well-balanced mechanically; as a DM I would allow any of them in my campaign.I *was* impressed that for each new race, every class was discussed with pointers on leveraging the racial abilities as well as some notes on the advantages and disadvantages such a character would face. This alone makes it far more likely that I will someday end up using these races, if only because it will be much easier to put together NPCs with this kind of forethought.The seventh chapter is a brief one defining a handful of gods appropriate for a stone age setting. These seemed well-thought out and appropriate, though in most cases only one or two paragraphs are given to description, leaving the DM the bulk of the work if they choose to use any of these beings.The final chapter is the beastiary. An innovative section at the beginning details several "critters", essentially fine to diminutive creatures useful for flavour and not much else. These are creatures used for food, trade, or pets rather than something to hunt or fight. In my opinion there should be a lot more of these in other products, as they do a lot to add to the feel of a game. There are a reasonable number of new monsters, with many dinosaurs (though less than I expected). Aside from the half-man, half-dinosaur creatures, which I laughed out loud at, they are good additions to your prehistoric jungle.The book closes with a list of creatures from the core rules appropriate to the setting, followed by the OGL.Overall, I found the book surprisingly useful, especially the chapters on primitive tribes which will find regular use in my game sessions.  The designers showed remarkable restraint, and avoided adding superfluous mechanics; I think this improved both the usefulness and the readability of the resulting product.The glaring weakness in the book is its poor organization and lack of transition from one section to the next. With a little work, this book could have been truly great instead of merely good.</blockquote>

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