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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crothian" data-source="post: 2186623" data-attributes="member: 232">ProfessionsProfessions    It is nice to see a simple addition to the game that helps in both a mechanical and role playing way.  Many times when new things are tried they can almost be like a square peg in a round hole.  The d20 system is flexible but sometimes it just does not fit an accommodate everything.  Once in a while a writer has to go a little outside the box.  This product does.  Its mechanics are not normal for the d20 game but they work along side with and work with the goal of the product.      Professions is a new PDF by Alea Publishing Group.  They have been a bit more active this year it seems as I have done two subclasses that they put out as well.  They also seem to be expanding beyond their first niche of honor and chivalry knight type products.  This PDF is only ten pages long, little art, but nicely laid out.  They have this book well book marked and easy to use from the screen.  There is some color and borders to the book so printing it out does take some ink but it was not that bad.  The book has good production values to it.      The way the mechanic works is that characters can get a single profession at first level.  Some of them are not fit for nobles but other then that there really is no restriction as to who can take what profession.  These are of course optional so not all characters need to take one.  They have an experience point cost but never more then a thousand and the smallest has a cost of one hundred experience points.  Some of the professions have different costs depending on who is taking them.  Halflings for instance have a smaller cost when taking the Cooking Profession.  Some like that one make sense other like females having a reduced cost to take Brewing Profession do not.  The professions represent an apprenticeship that the character would have had.  Each also gives a benefit to the character.  Some are pretty good while others are not.  The Stonemason for instance can once a day add a d6 to damage to overcome stones hardness that he is attacking.  A porter ups his size by one step in terms of carrying capacity, so a medium sized creature has the carrying capacity of a large creature.  Guide grants the track feat and a +2 competence bonus to all survival checks.  So, as one can see a variety of different abilities can be gained.      The costs will quickly become nothing though as the character gains levels.  Even a cost of a thousand experience points will not be that bad once the character reaches mid levels.  And high levels the differences of a few hundred experience points are rarely ever noticed.  The abilities though can be useful at high levels.  Some of them grant class skills which are very useful at high levels.  Some of the abilities though like the herbalists ability to heal one hit point a day per level really will not be that useful at high levels.  While mechanically they do not also equal each other none of them are what I would call powerful.    What I really like is the way it allows apprentices to come into the game and have some meaning.  I like being able to have that type of option for a character’s background.  The cost is something big at the lower levels but it does get lessoned as experience point awards increase.  To me that represents the character outgrowing his beginnings and his former teachings.  He will always have the training but it becomes less and less important compared to what other things he is able to do.  They are also really easy to add onto NPCs .    The other part of the book deals with craft points.  This is an optional rule first presented in Unearthed Arcana that uses points to help craft magical items.  These points represent the character spending a little down time here and there instead of needing a few solid weeks to complete the item.  The book here gives some craft points with the Profession options and also has a few feats that grant more points or allow different things to be done with crafting of items.      This little book does a nice job of presenting a new way to do something simple and good for the genre.  Apprentices were really common back in the day.  While some of the mechanics of the different ones are not equal none or powerful or will prove a big problem.  The new craft oriented feats are also good and should help with people using the Craft Points option.  I really like to see options built upon like this.</blockquote>

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