Old Fezziwig
this is a low-flying panic attack
The first book in Ronin Arts's Athenaeum Arcane series, Magic Items of the Senses, by Todd Crapper, is an 8-page PDF detailing magic items that enhance or alter their user's senses. There are two files included, one with a full-color cover and the other in black and white. The size difference between these two files is noticeable, with the full-color version coming in at about 2.5 MB and the black and white at only 62 kb. The cover, by Theodore Wing III, depicts a woman wearing a headband glaring at something below her. The design of the PDF, as usual, is clean and readable, although I question the decision to use grey borders on the interior -- it felt extra and didn't add anything to the content, in my opinion.
Inside, the author presents 12 magic items and one new skill, Scent (designed to replace the special ability and make its use more nuanced). Four of the items enhance sight, with the other senses breaking down as follows: one item for smell and taste and two for touch, hearing, and premonition. Some of the items are quite interesting, with rumbling boots and deep fingers the most outstanding. The former, at the cost of a -10 penalty to the user's Move Silently, grant the wearer tremorsense out to 60 ft., while the latter are gloves that grant a +10 circumstance bonus to an Open Lock check. I like the trade-off demanded by the boots, in particular -- it gives the magic item a little bit more flair and makes it more interesting. The rest of the items are a mixed bag, some more interesting than others, but none terrifically inspiring or exciting. I can't, for instance, see anyone using the tongue wrap, a wrap which the user wears around his neck, allowing him to track by taste (the example given in the text
Mechanically, there are some odd moments throughout, which hurt the PDF. For instance, the lens of darkvision, which are nearly identical to the goggles of night presented in the Dungeon Master's Guide save for the effects of taking them off, grant the user darkvision, but the PDF doesn't give a range for this. Similarly, the headband of light absorption gives no range on the low-light vision the user gains. The introduction of the Scent skill, essentially available only to creatures with the Scent ability, requires the reworking of skill points for monsters, with the author suggesting sliding ranks from Survival over into Scent. I feel like the current mechanics for the ability work well enough without replacing it with a skill that essentially just seems to just shuffle things around. Finally, the item prices are a bit off, with the lens of darkvision costing 2000 gp, whereas the goggles of night from the DMG list at 12,000 gp with essentially the same effect. The deep fingers cost 10,000 gp (for a +10 bonus to one skill), but a cloak of elvenkind, which has similar prerequisites in a 2nd level spell and a lesser effect (+5 bonus to Hide), comes in at 2500 gp. Both items seem equally useful to me, which would lead me to believe that the deep fingers really shouldn't cost too much more than 3750 gp.
Finally, the editing and writing in the PDF leaves a lot to be desired, as numerous errors popped up here and there, some of them rather intrusive ("While such a massive relay as four eye patches can cause, it is quite simple..." -- can cause what?) and others simply annoying (extra words, awkward sentences, abrupt transitions). These issues and the mechanical issues really ended up lessening my enjoyment of the PDF and damaging its potential utility to me. In short, I can't drop these items right into my game without carefully examining them and their prices and descriptions, which is, I think, the main advantage of this sort of release.
Score: 2.25 (rounded down to 2)
Inside, the author presents 12 magic items and one new skill, Scent (designed to replace the special ability and make its use more nuanced). Four of the items enhance sight, with the other senses breaking down as follows: one item for smell and taste and two for touch, hearing, and premonition. Some of the items are quite interesting, with rumbling boots and deep fingers the most outstanding. The former, at the cost of a -10 penalty to the user's Move Silently, grant the wearer tremorsense out to 60 ft., while the latter are gloves that grant a +10 circumstance bonus to an Open Lock check. I like the trade-off demanded by the boots, in particular -- it gives the magic item a little bit more flair and makes it more interesting. The rest of the items are a mixed bag, some more interesting than others, but none terrifically inspiring or exciting. I can't, for instance, see anyone using the tongue wrap, a wrap which the user wears around his neck, allowing him to track by taste (the example given in the text
Mechanically, there are some odd moments throughout, which hurt the PDF. For instance, the lens of darkvision, which are nearly identical to the goggles of night presented in the Dungeon Master's Guide save for the effects of taking them off, grant the user darkvision, but the PDF doesn't give a range for this. Similarly, the headband of light absorption gives no range on the low-light vision the user gains. The introduction of the Scent skill, essentially available only to creatures with the Scent ability, requires the reworking of skill points for monsters, with the author suggesting sliding ranks from Survival over into Scent. I feel like the current mechanics for the ability work well enough without replacing it with a skill that essentially just seems to just shuffle things around. Finally, the item prices are a bit off, with the lens of darkvision costing 2000 gp, whereas the goggles of night from the DMG list at 12,000 gp with essentially the same effect. The deep fingers cost 10,000 gp (for a +10 bonus to one skill), but a cloak of elvenkind, which has similar prerequisites in a 2nd level spell and a lesser effect (+5 bonus to Hide), comes in at 2500 gp. Both items seem equally useful to me, which would lead me to believe that the deep fingers really shouldn't cost too much more than 3750 gp.
Finally, the editing and writing in the PDF leaves a lot to be desired, as numerous errors popped up here and there, some of them rather intrusive ("While such a massive relay as four eye patches can cause, it is quite simple..." -- can cause what?) and others simply annoying (extra words, awkward sentences, abrupt transitions). These issues and the mechanical issues really ended up lessening my enjoyment of the PDF and damaging its potential utility to me. In short, I can't drop these items right into my game without carefully examining them and their prices and descriptions, which is, I think, the main advantage of this sort of release.
Score: 2.25 (rounded down to 2)
