Superior Synergy: Fantasy

[Bob]

Have you ever wondered why, when the pre-epic class levels allow you to have as many as 23 skill ranks in a given skill, that synergy stops at 5 ranks? Yeah, us too.

Superior Synergy introduces new skill synergy levels at three new benchmarks: 10, 15 and 20. Not all benefits are merely increases in a simple synergy bonus, either. Some benefits include reduced times needed to perform tasks associated or altered DC modifiers with the synergy skill.

It doesn't end there, either. Superior Synergy also introduces feat synergy. Much like skill synergy, feat synergy allows two or more feats to work together for additional benefits they couldn't achieve on their own without having to take additional feats.

Don't be satisfied with poor skill and feat planning. Check out Superior Synergy: Fantasy, the first in the Superior Synergy series and let your characters make the most of their potential.

This product has not been password protected so that you may bookmark it to your needs

 

[Angel Tarragon]

[imager]http://www.rpgnow.com/products/product_5542.jpg[/imager] Superior Synergy: Fantasy

Note: I received a copy of this product for review purposes

Superior Synergy: Fantasy brings the element of skill synergy to the gaming table with an expansion to the synergy system and goes beyond to include what synergies might be had from the combination of individual feats as well.

What the product is, is a breakdown of all the skills and how they interact with each other. You may have noticed that synergy bonuses top out when a skill has 5 ranks in it. Superior Skill Synergy goes beyond this to allow for greater synergy, and depending on the individual skill, your synergy bonus may top out at 20 ranks. That’s right, 20 ranks.

Synergies are cumulative and they the effects of it can be felt through the application of further skill points. That means that as you level up and pour more skill ranks into your skills you benefit from synergies at certain points. At 5 ranks it is obvious that your synergy bonus is +2 to another skill. Extrapolation on this can lead to higher bonuses to the synergy skill at the 10 rank mark or it can apply to different skills. Synergies improve when a skill has 10, 15 or 20 ranks.

Now what kind of synergy bonus might one get from having 10, 15 or 20 ranks in a certain skill? Let’s take Escape Artist as an example. We all know that at 5 ranks, a character gains a +2 synergy bonus to Use Rope. When that character has 10 ranks in Escape artist they gain a +3 bonus to Use Rope Checks to bind someone. At 15 ranks the character gains a +4 bonus to Use Rope Checks to bind someone and at 20 ranks a +5 bonus on Use Rope checks to bind someone is gained. You can clearly see that the application of learning the skill is retroactive in the mastery using rope to bind some. Not all skill synergies are like this though.

Let’s look at Jump and sere what the synergies are for it. Well, at 5 ranks characters gain a +2 bonus to Tumble checks. At 10 ranks the character the character can make a DC 15 Tumble check and treat a jump as if it were 15 feet shorter than it actually is for the purpose of determining damage taken from falls. Fifteen ranks in Jump allows the character to gain a +4 bonus on Tumble checks. At 20 ranks the character can make a DC 15 Tumble check and treat a jump as if it were 20 feet shorter than it actually is for the purpose of determining damage taken from falls.

As clearly evidenced between the two examples, not all synergies give a named bonus to skill checks related to the skill that gains a bonus at 5 ranks. There are plenty of skills that do give named bonuses to other skills though.

Innovative in its own right is the feat synergy that is presented in the product. It is an optional system that may be implemented but the author does give warning that if feat synergy feels too much like it is giving away free feats, for the DM to just not allow in their games.

While there are groups that use the paired skill focus rule from Unearthed Arcana, this product may make think to go back to named paired skill focuses. Acrobatics and Agile are two such feats that when combined can allow a character to tumble through an area with greater ease. In areas that are sloped or angled a character that has Acrobatics and Agile gain a +1 bonus to tumble through that area. In severely obstructed areas the character gains a +3 bonus to tumble through it and through severely slippery areas the character enjoys a +2 bonus.

Characters can go beyond gaining synergies from just having two feats. A character the Acrobatic and Agile feat gains other bonuses if they also gain the Animal Affinity feat. In such a case the character may use the fast mount or dismount (see the Ride skill) on a mount two size categories larger than itself.

Feat synergies are not just limited to affecting how skills interact with each other, but also extend to how combat oriented feats can lend their maximum potential to characters that match up particular ones.

A character with the Combat Expertise, Improved Disarm, Improved Precise Shot, Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot feats may attempt to disarm their opponents using a ranged attack. In order to do so the character needs to roll to disarm, but with a -8 penalty and can not use their normal bonuses and penalties for attempting the disarm. If the ranged weapon that is being used to disarm a small ranged weapon an additional -4 penalty is added but no further penalty is applied for medium ranged weapons. This is very cool indeed. Though the modifiers are there and the chance disarm is lessened, there is no way in the rules as written that a ranged weapon can possibly disarm an individual.

Another example of feat synergy is Diligent and Magical Aptitude. A character with these two feats can make one retry attempt as a free action on failed bardic knowledge checks involving magic items.

Yet another example is the combination of Athletic, Endurance and Skill Focus (Swim). A character with those feats is allowed a single standard action with no other actions (including free ones) in a round where they are holding their breath without that round counting against them for the total number of rounds that they are allowed to hold their breath for. The character must succeed at a Constitution check where the DC is equal to 10 plus the number of rounds the character has already held their breath for.

As you can see the synergies are well thought out and make sense.

Conclusion
I really like what this product does for the game. It provides a different way to get the maximum potential to characters that wish to combine certain talents of theirs. This product goes above and beyond my expectations. This reviewer gives Superior Synergy: Fantasy 5 stars.

 

[Creeping Death]

Ranged Disarm

There is already a feat called Ranged disarm. A mix of skills and and feats should not duplicate other feats. Also skill synergies continue beyone 20th level, for example, 5 ranks in escape artists gives a +2 synergy bonus to rope use. 25 ranks in escape artists gives you a +4 synergy bonus to rope use.

One last thing, a typo:

That means that ass you level up and pour more skill ranks into your skills you benefit from synergies at certain points.

....

That means that <what?> you level up......

Anyway, good review.

 

[Pinotage]

Good review. I've been looking at this product and I wondered if you had any comments about balance. Clearly giving more and more skill synergies can have an adverse affect on balance? Are these going to blow skills right out of proportion?

Pinotage

 

[danzig138]

Superior Synergy: Fantasy
Misfit Studios
Author: Steven Trustrum
Page count: (landscape) 10 plus OGL; (portrait) 8 plus cover and OGL
Price: $1.50

One of the things I like about D&D (3/3.5) is the concept of skill synergy bonuses. If you have 5 ranks in a certain skill, you might get a +2 bonus to one or more other skills. Great concept, but it stops at 5 ranks. Once you have those 5 ranks, you do not get any more synergy bonuses. Superior Synergy: Fantasy addresses this. It attempts to expand the synergy bonuses provided certain skills and feats, and it does this well.

Superior Synergy: Fantasy goes though each skill that provides synergy bonuses and expands on these bonuses, detailing the bonuses provided at 5 ranks. Each skill also provides additional bonuses at 10, 15, and 20 ranks. In some cases, these bonuses are simple progressions. For example, Escape Artist:

• Synergy (5 ranks): If you have 5 or more ranks in Escape Artist, you get a +2 bonus on Use Rope checks to bind someone.

• Synergy (10 ranks): If you have 10 or more ranks in Escape Artist, you get a +3 bonus on Use Rope checks to bind someone.

• Synergy (15 ranks): If you have 15 or more ranks in Escape Artist, you get a +4 bonus on Use Rope checks to bind someone.

• Synergy (20 ranks): If you have 20 or more ranks in Escape Artist, you get a +5 bonus on Use Rope checks to bind someone.

Others provide additional abilities with increased ranks. For example, Search:

• Synergy: If you have 5 or more ranks in Search, you get a +2 bonus on Survival checks to find or follow tracks.

• Synergy (10 ranks): If you have 10 or more ranks in Search, the time needed for a Survival check to find tracks is halved; what would typically take a full-round action now takes a standard action.

• Synergy (15 ranks): If you have 15 or more ranks in Search, you get a +4 bonus on Survival checks to find or follow tracks.

• Synergy (20 ranks): If you have 20 or more ranks in Search, the time needed for a Survival check to find tracks is reduced to one-quarter normal; what would typically take a full-round action now counts as a free action.

However, Superior Synergy: Fantasy does not stop with skill synergy bonuses – it also provides information on synergy between feats. For example, see the effect of Acrobatic, Agile, and Animal Affinity:

• You may use fast mount of dismount (see the Ride skill) on a mount up to two size categories larger than yourself.

Alternatively – Combat Casting, Spell Focus, and Spell Mastery:

• If the spell you are casting defensively is covered by Spell Mastery and is of a school you have Spell Focus for, you do not lose the spell if you fail the Concentration check to cast on the defensive. Instead, the spell merely fails without further consequences (such as loss from one’s memorized spells.)

Layout and Style
The landscape version uses a brownish page border. I think it's supposed to resemble the pages of a book, but I'm not sure. I do know that it is not attractive. I blame Dungeons and Dragons for this. Used to be, most gaming books I looked at didn't have the ubiquitous colored/designed page border, but once D&D came out, every d20 product seems to have these borders. I can't stand these borders, especially in landscape files. I would much rather have that extra space (and in many products, it's a lot of extra space) devoted to text. This would reduce the page count, and be less distracting.

The layout is standard two-column with an easy to read font. However, the headings are black, outlined in read, and, to me, look like Flintstones writing. The headings are very difficult to read, especially at a glance. Simply spacing out the font would improve the readability of the headings. Sacrificing style for function would improve them even more.

There are a few tables in Superior Synergy: Fantasy (landscape). Not only do these use a reddish-brown coloration that is unpleasant, but the text is blocky and all bold. This text is difficult to read carefully, let alone when quickly checking a fact.

The portrait file uses the same font for headings, except that the letters are not outlined in red. While it is still an unattractive font (really, what's wrong with simple bold Arial?), the lack of red dramatically improves the readability of the headings.

Art
Superior Synergy: Fantasy has three pieces of art. All three are quite small and decent quality. They are actually quite unobtrusive. It was only looking through it a second time that I even noticed it had art. This is how it should be in more gaming products.

Open Gaming
Superior Synergy: Fantasy is very open. I think, with a product of this nature, that is unavoidable. Open content is good.

File Utility
Superior Synergy: Fantasy includes two files: one landscape with graphics and color for screen reading, and a portrait version minus graphics and color for printing.

One of the main things I look for in a pdf is the ability to copy and paste the text from the product. Next is the ability to extract pages. Superior Synergy: Fantasy is an unlocked document – you can C&P and extract all you wish. This is a huge plus.

Superior Synergy: Fantasy has minimal bookmarks, leading only to the primary section headers, and not to each entry. This makes the bookmarks nearly useless.

Conclusion
Superior Synergy: Fantasy is a simple product, but a good one. It expands on something that should have been expanded on in core texts. Despite some formatting and style issues, Superior Synergy: Fantasy is an invaluable resource for players that like skill- and feat-heavy characters like Rogues and Fighters, and for DMs who want to create particularly capable NPCs.