Even though the reviews section is back up, I think this particular book needs a thread because of the problems with it.
Primeval Groves is a 96 (98 using the inside overs) page supplement on plants. Like all Wanderers Guild books, it starts off with a look at its fictional author, in this case Frondescent Salmagundi, a frolate prontal (I will get back to this race). There are no chapters so I will call the pages with similar material sections.
It then looks at plant ecology- classification (which includes fungi unfortunately) and relationships such as symbiosis.
The section that many players should be interested goes over useful, non-monster plants. Many are not typical herbalism plants, but rather ones useful for other needs. The dieooing vine is a fig like parasite that can be used as rope, the omp stems are used for writing and have their own ink, and the surfage weed reduces dazzling effects. There are 36 such plants described.
The next section are the monster plants, 20 in all. A sample include the briar golem, the dequalm (a parasite that controls its host), the juk (a slime covered fey like plant that converts animals and humanoids into more slime), the kint (a ball that bounces and engulfs prey), the olanth mezzalith (a two headed humanoid shaped plant that has two personalities- one good and the other evil), and the veegamoblis (a template that converts a living non-plant into a plant, it is an infection).
The next two sections look at classes and a deeper look at druidic groves. The former is roleplaying suggestions and the latter involves magical effects the groves may have. Grove gifts involve spending xp to effectively cast another, specific spell such as entangle within the grove. Also there are druid rituals.
Next are the green races. They are the burgeonliese (mushroom people), frolate prontal (green gnomes- yup plants that look like gnomes) and the mutarmarl (mulch men who can change their shape and affect their size, ability scores and AC from day to day).
1 class- the hinterlander (survialist fighter class), and 2 PrCs- the boskite explorer (divine class that studies plants) and the xylomancer (arcane caster that studies plants, but does not warp or control them).
Spells and power components round out the last two sections. There are 30 spells that run from first to eight level and the most powerful is compost cocoon (which turns a target into soil over time). Most are utility spells. The power components look at the value of plant parts to increase the use of certain spells. Olanth mezzalith brains can be used to improve awaken and a treat branch increases the duration of changestaff and gives the result the ability to speak to treants.
And now for the controversy. It turns out that a draft of the book was printed instead of the final product. It has many editing errors, mostly duplicated sentence fragments and grammatical errors. The worst is the chart for the xylomancer is replaced by that of the boskite explorer. Several sections have few, if any errors (like the spells and useful plants).
Goodman has put out errata that fixes all of this. It is annoying, but it definately does not make the book useless. In fact I find it more interesting and useful than Creatures of the Endless Dark. And thus I give it a 4. Without the errata, I would have given it a 3.
Primeval Groves is a 96 (98 using the inside overs) page supplement on plants. Like all Wanderers Guild books, it starts off with a look at its fictional author, in this case Frondescent Salmagundi, a frolate prontal (I will get back to this race). There are no chapters so I will call the pages with similar material sections.
It then looks at plant ecology- classification (which includes fungi unfortunately) and relationships such as symbiosis.
The section that many players should be interested goes over useful, non-monster plants. Many are not typical herbalism plants, but rather ones useful for other needs. The dieooing vine is a fig like parasite that can be used as rope, the omp stems are used for writing and have their own ink, and the surfage weed reduces dazzling effects. There are 36 such plants described.
The next section are the monster plants, 20 in all. A sample include the briar golem, the dequalm (a parasite that controls its host), the juk (a slime covered fey like plant that converts animals and humanoids into more slime), the kint (a ball that bounces and engulfs prey), the olanth mezzalith (a two headed humanoid shaped plant that has two personalities- one good and the other evil), and the veegamoblis (a template that converts a living non-plant into a plant, it is an infection).
The next two sections look at classes and a deeper look at druidic groves. The former is roleplaying suggestions and the latter involves magical effects the groves may have. Grove gifts involve spending xp to effectively cast another, specific spell such as entangle within the grove. Also there are druid rituals.
Next are the green races. They are the burgeonliese (mushroom people), frolate prontal (green gnomes- yup plants that look like gnomes) and the mutarmarl (mulch men who can change their shape and affect their size, ability scores and AC from day to day).
1 class- the hinterlander (survialist fighter class), and 2 PrCs- the boskite explorer (divine class that studies plants) and the xylomancer (arcane caster that studies plants, but does not warp or control them).
Spells and power components round out the last two sections. There are 30 spells that run from first to eight level and the most powerful is compost cocoon (which turns a target into soil over time). Most are utility spells. The power components look at the value of plant parts to increase the use of certain spells. Olanth mezzalith brains can be used to improve awaken and a treat branch increases the duration of changestaff and gives the result the ability to speak to treants.
And now for the controversy. It turns out that a draft of the book was printed instead of the final product. It has many editing errors, mostly duplicated sentence fragments and grammatical errors. The worst is the chart for the xylomancer is replaced by that of the boskite explorer. Several sections have few, if any errors (like the spells and useful plants).
Goodman has put out errata that fixes all of this. It is annoying, but it definately does not make the book useless. In fact I find it more interesting and useful than Creatures of the Endless Dark. And thus I give it a 4. Without the errata, I would have given it a 3.
