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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2010280" data-attributes="member: 1129">Tombs claims to be the “Definitive d20 Tomb Adventure Design Guide”.  Weighing in at 128 pages, it certainly looks like it has enough room to do so but does it succeed?The book is broken up into four chapters but the bulk of the material is actually presented in the six appendixes.  Chapter One, the Nature of Tombs provides a general overview of tombs and how to use them in the campaign.  It's a good general overview but doesn't have any specifics.  For example, while it provides some innovative ideas like the Godmourn, it doesn't go into any detail.  The sections are broken up into too small chunks with no information to back them up.  Under Reactions to Reaving, it provides a few questions to ask yourself.  Good enough to get the brain juices flowing but what historical, since much of the inspiration is drawn from history, precedents do we have?  Are reavers banished to another plane?  Are they entombed with those they sought to rob?  Are they stripped of all items and sent away?Chapter Two is much the same but not quite as bad.  The different types of tombs include catacombs, cryptplanes, godmourns, necropolis, planar tombs, and pyramids with information on the spiritstone sepulcher, a magical device used by evil entities for resurrection purposes.  Now some of this material sounds very intriguing.  The actual information though, is lacking.  Godmourns are tombs for gods but no details or example maps of what such a tomb might look like are included.  How about a listing of dead gods that game masters can add to their campaign?   When maps are provided, they have no details to them.  Perfect for those just looking for some quick maps and examples but not a lot to run out of the box.  More interesting was the brief information on the racial variations provided.    If this section had information on how to craft your own tombs in the campaign as far as labor involved, cost involved and time taken, it'd add another layer of usefulness.For me, the best chapter has to be Chapter Three, Guardians and Traps.  It starts off with some background on how different types of guardians came to be and provides a quick list of the broad types of guardians used; undead, constructs and outsiders.  The real meat is the sample guardians, most of which are expertly illustrated and add a lot of life to the product.  Recoil in horror at the Bleak Sentinel, a zombie that retains some of its combat knowledge or bare blades against the Nolodraer, a massive creature with an ogre's body and a bull's skull.  Gotta admit that it looks a lot like a minotaur zombie with a skull for a head.  The information on traps provides both simple mechanical traps and more advanced 'sentient' traps. These traps are really just monsters with a trap motive like the flying pit and the boom ball, a construct that explodes when damaged. Classic material that we've seen used in the gas spores and some suits of adamantine armor from the old Creature Collection in Dragon magazine.Chapter four gets into the other meaty section of the book, rewards. The sections on gemstone types, precious materials and magic, provide a lot of flavor for the game. The new magic items, spell stones, similar to scrolls and foci, small tokens that act as minor augmentation in one field, add a nice touch to the d20 magic hordes.The appendixes provide specifics to some of the mentioned materials in the text. Want feats to craft your own spell stones? How about spells to craft your own guardians?  Appendix A has got you covered. On the other hand, appendix B, Tombs in Non-Fantasy Settings doesn't really have a lot to say. Modern Tombs doesn't get into any details about real life tombs or the menaces that they may hold that don't involve guardians or traps.  For instance, unstable grounding, dormant diseases, and everyone's favorite genre that's not too modern but still in the modern vein, Forbidden Kingdoms Pulp Action style material. The information on Science Fiction is similarly lacking for the most part, using super science to replace magic.  Nothing about say, tomb planets or teleporting tombs.Those who want to follow the advice in chapter three about unique guardians will enjoy appendix C and D as both contain ideas and game mechanics to customize undead and golems, increasing the CR as appropriate with new abilities for standard undead like ability drain or spell immunity.Those who want more specifics for treasure to place in their tombs will use Appendix E extensively. The tables aren't as attractive as the undead columns and layout out but provide the GM with over ten treasure types and numerous tables that include description and values for said items. This is a very lengthy section and should provide the GM with hours of time saving tables to prestock his dungeons with or roll at the gaming table.Appendix F, the closing appendix, introduces the Valley of Despicar, a location where tomb are under siege by adventurers who strive to bring to light ancient treasures.  Important NPC's with abbreviated information (name, race, sex, class and level) are provied so that the GM can get stuff rolling right away.  Those characters that the players may take up arms against or fight alongside that lurk within the valley proper are fully statted out.  One of the most useful things about this section is the information on tomb markers.  Illustrated with information to help the GM, the tomb markers are good visuals to players to know where they should be looting.  For example, a Chieftain's tomb is appropriate for a group of 6th level adventurers while a shaman's is good for 2nd level characters.  One of my complaints about the earlier chapter, no examples, is handled here with the Tomb of Gaius Jolero, a small tomb appropriate for a group of 10th-13th level characters.  It's nice and simple, but since most readers are going to be familiar with such standard material, how about a look at a Godmourn or a Cryptplane, one of the more exotic materials.The layout uses standard two-columns with very few illustrations.  The art in chapter three is top notch and goes a long way in giving the product a professional polish but much of that is lost as the text itself often is broken up by improper use of justified text, making the text fit a whole line even if it's just one word for example, and some strange formatting where the text looks double spaced or is out of alignment.  Some editing would've cut down some clutter in the book as well.  For example, when considering the different genres that tombs can be placed in, instead of pointing out “the four major aspects” for any campaign, the information is repeated and the magic/non-magic argument is used several times instead of just mentioned once.So what's the final option?  Good ideas that need more details to back them up.  A listing of references could add some more utility to the book.  Some tweaks to the PDF file would also be helpful.  For example, it's set to default when opened Fit in Window and has no bookmarks.  There are links within the text itself however to ease navigating about but these are no substitution for bookmarks.  The monsters and magic items will quickly find their way into my campaign and I'll be making use of the treasure tables but as far as actually designing Tombs I'll probably be using the good old Dungeon book by Central Casting.</blockquote>

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