Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009826" data-attributes="member: 1129">Pale Designs: A Poisoner’s HandbookWritten by Steven Creech and Kevin RueschPublished by Bastion Press96 full color pages$24.954 StarsNow this book has it almost all together.  It starts off with some ideas on how you might use poisons in your campaign not against the players, but as a plot device.  You know, standard stuff where the players have to gather some rare ingredients either from plant or animal and journey far away on a great quest.  Yeah, well and good, but I’m much more interested in the very comprehensive collection of poisons from various sources.Now some may have decided that they don’t like the way poisons work.  Me, I’m fine with it.  However, for those who hate it, there is an alternative poison system here that causes hit point damage.  Now that’s a little against the grain of what most poisons do, but for some campaigns, it’ll work fine.For me, part of the book shines with the OGC.  It collects poisons from various products.  Among the contributors are Nightmares & Dreams II, Creature Collection I and II, some Freeport material, some Arcana material, some Sovereign Stone, some Occult Lore, some Spycraft, and other goodies.  In other words, if you’re looking for a poison, chances are it’s in here.Not content to leave well enough alone, there are dozens of new poisons to test out on your players.  Not just ordinary poisons either.  There are magical poisons, planar poisons and all sorts of stuff that can effect even the undead.  Things like moss that destroy bone matter and planar poisons that only work against creatures that aren’t native to the plane they’re currently on.  Seems a lot of evil outsiders use this sort of stuff against those who dare follow them to their home.The section on equipment and weapons is a nice touch but probably not one that’s vital to the game.  I mean with Arms & Armor, Encyclopedia of Weapons and other compendiums, some of this material has seen the light of day before, but it’s always good to have just that one more extra piece.  Like poisoned caltrops and dueling cloaks.  My favorite though has to be the needle launcher, looking like something out of a wicked spy movie with its three different chambers.One section that I thought was way too short is the traps.  Less then two full pages of material.  I know, get something that pieces the individual, and poison it.  Pretty simple right?  Yeah, but that’s not what they do.  They’ve got wines that have alchemical mixes that spray forth a cloud of poison in a 20-foot cloud radius.  There are trapped carriages for the nobility and swords with poisoned hilts.  Good stuff but far too short.Those looking for some protection from all this poison will flip through the magic items with a sigh of relief.  The new armor quality, purging, is able to absorb up to three different doses of poison before it can do no more and must be ‘cured’ of the poison in order to absorb more.  Other goods like weapon qualities that allow a blade to ‘drink’ whatever liquid it’s placed into to be released later, will find a home in most campaigns.  Another useful one, steel-phase, ignores steel, going through it as if it were not there.Remember how I mentioned that there’s some OGC in here?  Well, it doesn’t stop with the poisons friend.  There are some new feats, like Adept Poisoner, and some reprinted feats like Empower Poison, Extend Poison, and others that can add some fun to any campaign.  I would’ve preferred to see more new feats but it’s nice to have all the themed feats together in one spot.  Now I just have to hope that there’s not too much overlap between this and the Ultimate Feat Book from Mongoose.While the monster section does introduce some new wonders like the clockwork stirge that can inject poison or take blood samples, it’s lack of illustrations for all monsters, especially with so much OGC material, is a little disappointing.  Still, those looking for poisonous plants to throw at their party will enjoy the variety here including the template, ‘Vile Shambler’.Now let’s see, we’ve got the poisons, the weapons they’re coated on, the monsters that naturally brew them and the feats to help overcome and apply them… What are we missing?  Spells.  That’s right, there are new spells for every core class and the assassin and blackguard PrCs.  Heck, they’ve even throught in a Murder and Poison domain to help balance out those pesky abilities the clerics and paladins have been using from the Book of Hallowed Might and Good.  Next time they go on about having a cool Oath Feat, hit ‘em with a Toxic Storm that creates poisonous rain.I know, there’s still at least one loose end.  One thing that all players and even DMs love that hasn’t been covered and that’s PrCs.  Well, fear not, there are numerous PrCs within the book.  Some of ‘em fit right into the whole poison attitude like the Acolyte, a holy assassin who uses poison and the infiltrator, a spy who uses poison on those he has grown close to.  Some of them though, don’t really look like they have anything to do with poison.  While the bondsman could use poison, they seem more ranger/rogue like in many aspects and the Mage Hunter and Psi Slayer, while perhaps apt to using poisons on their preferred victims, don’t have any special ability with it.  These classes tend more towards the ‘evil’ side and look like they were put in because they were ‘kewl’ as opposed to fitting the poison profile.  One of the cool things about the classes though, is that they have suggested uses not only for standard fantasy, but for modern campaigns and the Oathbound setting.  Some of it seems rather common sense, but it’s good to have a slight grounding for newer players and GMs.The book closes off with two NPC classes, the Canthartisan, masters of crafting poison, and the henchmen, street smart individual.  Neither one of these did anything for me.  The former could just as easily have been an expert and the latter could’ve used the thug NPC from Traps & Treachery or another variant of the expert NPC class.The place where I was a little disappointed in the book is in it’s description of poisons.  I have no more idea of what respiratory poisons do now than before I bought the book.  Now Role Master had some great rules on what the different poisons did.  What a circulatory poison was as opposed to a muscular poison.  While the ideas on a poison chain are nice, how about some more ideas on what these poisons do?  Why do certain animals and plants have them in the real world?  Some interesting stuff that I can sink my teeth into, not some inane suggestions on how I might use poison in my campaign.  Some won’t like the fact that the book uses OGC.  Me, I like that.  There’s no reason for people to try to reinvent the wheel over and over again.  Others may not like the art which hails back to the earlier products like Minions and Arms & Armor, but once again, I personally have no problem with most of it.  Some of the PrCs and Feats seem a little out of place in a poisoner’s handbook, but they seem like they’re in here because they fit the ‘assassin’ model which poisoners, in one way or another, are.In the end, if you’re looking for a complete and comprehensive treatment of poisons that ranges from everything from feats, spells, monsters and PrCs, but doesn’t include any details on how the poisons work, then Pale Designs is for you.</blockquote>

Verification