Review on some of the Quint Books (long)

[megamania]

Darker theme?

Sounds good since I play mainly Darksun or darker characters (not evil- just unlucky).

 

[Bendris Noulg]

That would be interesting. Guess I'll bump it a notch or three on the to-get list.

 

[johncolossus]

paths of the shapeshifter

Stalker0, I asked the same questions as you did about the druid's shapeshifting powers on the publishers thread. I like the section but feel it is overpowered.

With the amount of monsters you can turn into....by the time you are in your 10-20th level you have seen a number and if you were a shapeshifter specialist why not take knowledge (monsters) skill? With the rules as written even if you follow that the dragon might be balenced as Neo said unless you take lots of feats, it still does not limit the potential abuse of other creatures.....the fey (otto's irresistable dance from a pixie, some of the instant kill abilities of the fey), the undead (level drain every hit!). One comparison for the ultimate in non-epic shapeshifting is the shifter class and the 9th level (ie minimum 17th level character) spell shapechange. None of these allow (su) or (sp) abilities.......officially do not even allow type! In the QD rules ....the above are allowed at 13th level. Then add this up with prolonged metamorphosis with multiple different powerful creatures you then have an adaptable living tank!

My solution would be to create high level druid spells which allow the addition of (sp) and (su) for short periods if one was keen to keep this flavour. Also I think it would not be unbalenced to have "acquire creature type" as a part of shifting abilities instead of (su) or (sp) and thus replace the spell that is in the book.

Really liked it though.

 

[Psion]

It is in the UK I don;t know about the rest of the world, it's a good book with a slightly darker theme to it <g>

I am in the states and got mine about two weeks ago from the ENWorld rpg shop (click the "shop" link button at the top of your page.)

I'll reiterate the mini-review of QPW that I posted on the Mongoose board.

What I liked about the book:
1) I liked the Chakra thing. While a little gory, I thought that it better grounded the concept of "physical stat" psionics in eastern mysticism, which is sort of the way I have thought of it since the PsiHB came out.
2) I think the Character Concepts were better done than any Quintessential book. I usually dislike Character Concepts because they try to balance the character by penalizing skills that the character will not be using, which is a non-penalty AFAIAC. Character concepts in QPW actually penalize things that are important to a psychic warrior, like concentration.
3) The hybrid psychic combat makes the Psy War something other than a wet noodle in psychic combat.
4) Weapon manifestation and battle trances -- they sort of resemble weapon styles, but rely on feats, skill levels, and psionic reserve, so seem more balanced to me

What I didn't like about the book
1) The prestige classes don't use bonus manifester (or psychic warrior) levels, but restart their known power progression; most newer products add new levels of the base class manifesting.* They are already complaining about this one on the psionics boards on the wizards site.
1a) (side querry) Shouldn't the "finesse fighter" get good reflex saves instead of fort saves? (I talked to Sam Witt and he said that he did, indeed, mean it that way, but it doesn't fit the concept as well AFAIAC.)
1b) (side querry 2) In hybrid combat, is the DC really only the difference between the hit roll and AC (that's not very high), or is it supposed to the 1d20+the difference?
2) Some descriptions are confusing. Does the Rollover power actually prevent attacks from harming the character? The Chakra rules are a bit thick to pace through as well.
3) The powers are not arranged alphabetically, but by discipline and power level, making it very slow to look up powers. What were they thinking?


* - Side discussion on the prestige classes.
While I don't like "rebooting" power advancement for psionic classes, I can see how these classes could still be playable. They all have good BAB progression and decent class abilities.

HOWEVER

Many of the class abilities are enhancements to particular powers. Since they get so few powers (aggravated by their slow power progression), this really puts the pinch on some classes since in order to take advantage of these abilities, they have to forgo some arguably more essential powers. (For example, the finesse fighter cannot use the rollover ability at all unless they waited until 10th level and took rollover as their singular 4th level power)

What I would do that would make the classes more viable without retooling it to use continued manifester level advancement is:
1) If you do not have the power called out by a class ability, you get the power but not the enhancement from the class ability, and
2) Manifester levels stack for the purposes of effects.

That, I think, would make the classes playable in short order.

 

[Stalker0]

I think that in order for the druid to keep the powers granted by the Quint Druid book, it needs to come with some serious penalties. I mean, considering this is a much more powerful shapechange than.....the spell shapechange then their should be a major physical toll for the druid.

 

[Stalker0]

bumping twice more, to give people a chance to look at it.

 

[LGodamus]

I agree the section on shapeshifters is unbalanced.....shapechanging should not give you the ability to use a bunch of spells that arent even on your character list or supernatural abilities.....even with a weak dragon form as Neo is saying..you have to consider a breath weapon every 1d4 rounds ...that is a huge advantage since ou no longer have to keep attack spells memorized........just blast of breath of doom every few seconds...Not balanced..