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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2010801" data-attributes="member: 172">Avast, maties! Lay yer eyes upon the booty I jus' gathered: Pirates! (by Living Imagination) and Skull & Bones (by Adamant Entertainment and Green Ronin). Now you can live a pirates life if ye are layin low... or if ye are a landlubber!PiratesPirates! is a rules supplement by Living Imagination dedicated to the topic of, uh, pirates. As with most of their rules supplements like Spellbound and Broadsides!, the book is written with Living Imagination's Twin Crowns setting in mind, but is also written with use as a general d20 Fantasy game use in mind. The book is based on Living Imagination's Broadsides!, and references it frequently.A First LookFormat: 112 pages. Perfect-bound softcover. $19.95.Layout: Moderate to good body text density. Single spaced lines and paragraphs. Two columns. Well shaded tables. Tables had some editorial errors, such as having the table content of the Pirate prestige class for the Gentleman Pirate prestige class, which does not match its class abilities.Cover artist/comments: The cover art, by Clyde Caldwell, depicts a buxom and scantily clad woman illustrated Elmore style, with a miniature dragon perched upon her shoulder. The art is good quality, but it is about as classy as you would expect for such a cover.Interior artists/comments: Marcio Fiorito, Don Maitz, and Rinaldo Santana. The art is average to good quality. I normally like Marcio's work, but some of his illustrations here struck me as a bit cartoonish.Cartography: The maps appear to be done in Campaign Cartographer 2. The maps are decent in appearance. My only complaint is that for all but one of the maps, the shading of the island is the same as that of the sea, providing insufficient contrast and a somewhat tepid appearance.A Deeper LookPirates! is a multi-functional supplement, providing for many facets of a pirate campaign.The first chapter is entitled "Pirate's Life." It actually is split into two major sections: a background section and a rules section.The background section of the first chapter is basically a familiarization with the pertinent details of piracy. This includes such details as life about ship, provisions, crew considerations, distinctions between pirate and privateer, and other basic facts.The mechanics in this section, unless you count cost of provisions, is limited to feats. Feats include aggressive pilot (which provides and impressive bonus when piloting a ship to ram another or avoiding the same) and swashbuckling (which allows a character to take advantage of ship's rigging in a fight.)The second chapter, "Pirate Profiles" is the largest in the book and actually serves dual purposes. First, it provides statistics blocks for a number of historical pirate figures of legend as well as figures made up for a fantasy game. Second, many figures have new prestige classes; after each figure that uses a new prestige class, the game statistics for the new class is presented.The new prestige classes include archetypes of characters that ply their trade on the seas, including your basic pirate, gentleman pirate, slavers, lookout, salvager, sail rider, and eldritch captain. Other prestige classes represent more specific concepts, such as the Jali (basically a witchdoctor specializing in necromancy) and the sea's chosen (a character who suffered at the hands of someone at sea, and is seemingly watched over by the seas.) Some of the prestige classes seem a little weak, such as having only moderate BAB advancement, but offering only class abilities that bolsters a few specific seaborne situations.In addition to the legendary pirates and prestige classes, the second chapter provides rules for ghost ships, and an example, the legendary Flying Dutchman.The short third chapter, Ships and Booty, provides rules for operating a ship, costs for shipping, and random tables that describe the nature and value of cargoes.The fourth chapter is a bit of a surprise, since the author of Broadsides! insisted it was impractical: a ship construction system. The complaint at the time was that different eras provide vastly different capabilities in ships. The author manages this by providing common hull types in different eras. However, after that it dives into a more typical "handcraft" type construction system. The system shows a careful attention to detail and approximates reality fairly well, but doesn't seem to take into account different ship technologies and methodologies.It should be emphasized here that the actual rules for using ships are in Living Imaginations' Broadsides!.The fifth chapter provides equipment and magic items. The standard equipment includes gunpowder weapons and crucial shipboard navigation tools. The magic items include such items of interest in a seafaring campaign as the cape of the swashbuckler. The cape of the swashbuckler provides a dodge bonus to AC despite the fact that the DMG says you are never supposed to do this. That's okay guys, I think it's a stupid rule too. Veteran seafarers also know to beware Davy Jones' Locker, which is statted out as a cursed item in these pages to lure seafarers to their doom.The sixth chapter details Krondor's Folly, an island in the Twin Crowns setting with the feel of a Carribean island. The description provides the same sort of in-depth detail that you see in Living Imagination's excellent Streets of Silver. However, given this, it suffers in breadth due to the brevity of the chapter.The last chapter is entitled Pirate Adventures and contains two adventures for enterprising seafarers. The first pits the PCs against a pirate band composed of island natives and merfolks. The second is basically a treasure quests that takes the PCs to exotic and dangerous items. The adventures are fairly simple.ConclusionThe character options provided in Pirates! are interesting, but in some ways seem a little weak in a standard campaign. The ship construction rules and operation rules are a welcome addition to the Broadsides! rules. The setting info and adventures are decent, but a bit too brief to be of great use.Pirates! perhaps doesn't fulfil the promise of pirate campaigning as well as Skull & Bones does. However, if you are seeking a supplement that is more an addition to an existing d20 Fantsy game instead of a book that essentially forges the d20 System into a new game, Pirates! may serve you needs better.Overall Grade: C+-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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