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Message: <blockquote data-quote="geoffrey d`glanville" data-source="post: 2085025" data-attributes="member: 29329">The Slayer`s Guide to TrollsThis is a little discussion about the contents of Slayer`s Guide #8, To Trolls.While reviewing the product, I thought it was a much lower number, i.e. an earlier Slayer`s Guide, but I was quite astonished that a book so far into the line was so rather mediocre.Let us see that in detail.The Slayer`s Guide to Trolls consists of 11 chapters. The first being theIntroduction (1 page, 2.4 stars out of possible 5.10),which is rather uninspired and not suited to make the reader hunger for more info on trolls.(Subchapters: The Slayer`s Guides  -  Troll - Ravenous Predators)Troll Physiology (3 pages, 3.6) is definitely better and explains nicely all the well known physical advantages (and for the players that means: disadvantages!) of that race, but nothing knew.(Heightened Senses - Regeneration - Dietary Considerations - The Troll`s Lifecycle)Subspecies is the best chapter in the book (4 pages, 4.0). There are some pretty neat variants of the troll, I especially liked the Bicephalous (Two-Headed) Troll and the Megalotroll, although some of the stats can`t be right (e.g. I don`t think it`s correkt that a Huge Size troll makes 2d4 with its Claw Attacks)(Sandtroll - Polar Troll - Giant Troll - Bicephalous (Two-Headed) Troll - Megalotroll)Habitat is pretty uninspired and consists only of stereotypes (1 page, 2.0).Troll Society is again a better chapter in the book. It nicely details the quasi socio-cultural aspects of troll life, 5 pages, 3.8.(Clan Structure - On the Leadership of Females - The Outcast - Troll Spirituality).Methods of Warfare sadly is again totally predictable and without new ideas (2 pages, 2.7).Roleplaying with Trolls only microwaves old ideas. Nothing new. 1 page, 1.6.The Scenario Hooks and Ideas are absolutely 08/15, sometimes horribly bad, 1 pade, 1.4.Trolls as Characters is another disappointment in that there are no Prestige Classes (yes, in a racial sourcebook -NO- Prestige Classes associated with that race, that was quite a shock to say in earnest), the Feats are only upgrades of already existing racial advantages of the troll (such as his regeneration abilities), the handfull (much too few) Spells are O.K., 4 pages, 2.0.Azkhaks Lair is your next uninspired 08/15 troll cave, 2 pages, 1.3.The Troll Reference List is again rather uninspired and there are no interesting Troll/PrC or Core Class (exept for the super-classic Cleric) combinations, a disappointment, 2 pages, 1.6.Then the infamous Grey Boxes, which are sometimes a real delight in the Slayer`s Guides. Not so in this one; I do not know which flair the author, Johnathan Richards, wanted to create here, but they can`t be more than your super-mediocre 8th class sessionlogs from somebody`s campaign; an absolutely failed amalgam of Warhammer Frp/Basic D&D mood, that just is horrible to read. Sorry about that, but it is that way. The saddest thing of it all is that the Grey Boxes ate up about 7 pages of this thinly book (32 pages altogether, that makes it 22% of the whole book! A clear filler here), thus finally ruining of what could have been a nice book, 7 pages, 1.2.Then, the looks.The overall concept of doing such racial books and thus relieving those races from the status of mere XP shippers is very nice; to do them as relatively flappy 32-page booklets for $ 9.95 each is not that brilliant; mostly they would deserve a much better treatment, as e.g. Kenzer and Co. have recently shown in their Friend & Foe line (224 page+ hardcovers), 3.8.The Cover by Brent Chumley is mediocre at best, 2.4.The Troll Study illu on the inside frontcover by Chris Quilliams is good quality, as usual, 3.8.The Inside Illus are b/w and were made by Phil Renne, clearly to the benefit of the book and myabe rescuing it from going under two stars, 3.4. There are 11 illus (counting that of Chris Quilliams) altogether.The Map of Azkhaks Lair is also nice to look at, 3.0.The Inner Layout of the book is a little better than amateur style, the weapons that modelled for the illus on the right and left of the pages were Larp weapons, right?<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />, O.K., 2.6.The Cover is made from relatively solid, laminated cardboard, 3.2.Price/Value is not good; it`s a totally mediocre (close to uninspired bad) mostly low quality fluff book that basically only deals in stereotypes, 2.2.Price/Page is also way bad (although $ 9.95 might not seem that bad for a booklet in the first place), 31.1 cents per page, 0.5.Paper Quality is O.K., 2.8.Crunch/Fluff ratio is O.K., but the crunch in that book was not good, and it should have been more, about 30% in my estimation, but it was only about 15%. The fluff was not good either, the Grey Boxes prose something to run away from, 2.7.Illu/Page ratio is 2.9 pages per illu, not bad, 2.6.Writing Style is genarally not bad, but the weak prose of the Grey Boxes partly ruins the rest, 2.2.So, overall a quite mediocre 2.5 value that it largely does not owe to its content (even some of the stats were wrong), but rather its acceptable hardware.Very sad, because the concept generally is not bad at all and the Trolls would have deserved a much better treatment. Maybe Kenzer and Co. does something with it.This is a 3.0e product, published in 2002 and of what I can tell from the Mongoose Publishing Website as of 03-09-05, it is out-of-print by now.Note that the Slayer`s Guide to Trolls is also featured in Mongoose`s hardcover book Slayer`s Guide Compendium I from 11/2004 for $ 34.95 (clearly the better deal, along with definitely better Slayer`s Guides), which is v.3.5, along with Bugbears, Gnolls, Hobgoblins, Orcs and Troglodytes.I also would like to add that I cannot follow the praise of my forerunner and dub this a book with "superior" quality. Sorry, it clearly isn`t.</blockquote>

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