amethal said:
Anyone got any comments or reviews of it?
I'm only one "Yeah, its not bad" remark away from buying the pdf, I just need that little extra nudge.
Well, how does one review a product like this? Obviously, it's very good stuff. About the only bad thing I can say about it (if it is bad) is that it reveals those few places that I vary greatly with Monte's philosophy.
I don't have a copy of the work here in front of me so excuse me if I am less that comprehensive.
Monte picked out some of the same creatures I would have. As I mentioned, the Madrir is one of my favorite creatures from Denizens of Avadnu. Its a creature that powers its own magic with the magic of other casters and can sort of force others to cast spells. Certain to preturb a part with many arcane casters.
The book also made me take a second look at some creatures I have but have not really strongly considered, like the Crucifiction spirit and nightmare collector.
I also thought the Yogi was great added value for the book. The yogi class is sort of cool -- a strange "divine bard" type concept. But I beleive if you look at the my Complete Guide to Rakshasas review, I beleive you will find that I felt it was sort of out of place, a PC class buried in a book that only DMs are likely to own. Hopefully this book will find this and other interesting mechanics and character options a broader audience.
Seeing new art on many of these creatures is cool. I liked the time flayer, but gotta say, the original ToHII art didn't really do it for me; the art here is cool. The same is true with other various new renditions.
There are things I would have picked first from some of these books (frex, Intense Energy is probably my favoritest feat from Metablades, and while A&T is one of my fave 3rd party books, there are many other aspects of it I would have featured first), but this is Monte's book and that is to be expected. It highlights some other of Monte's tastes that don't work so well for me.
I found his choice of prestige classes odd because, well, most of them echo classes that Monte has written in other products. That being the case, if you are already a monte fan, you will already have something close to many of the classes in here. And in two cases, they are concepts that I am really not on the same page as he is.
First, arcane warrior. Monte seems to have this preference that fighter-mage types not really be spellcasters. I also think the arcane warrior has a few other issues. You can't take your first level in the class until 13th level, but it's a 10 level class. To me, if a class by design will have levels you have to take after 20th, those should fall in "epic progression" format. In addition, the class does not seem that strong of a choice given the prereqs; many of the choices for spell like abilities are abilities that, by the time you reach the required levels in this class, will be rather paltry.
Second, Cosmographer. Monte already did the Ur-priest, and I didn't like that. The closest thing to this concept that I like is in the Nyambe setting. The general "ur-priest" idea of an atheist in a blatantly theistic meta-setting strikes me as the worst sort of fourth-wall breaking concept. At least I'll say this -- I like the mechanics for the class better than the ur-priest.
