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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010404" data-attributes="member: 18387">By Glenn Dean, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine RackSizing up the TargetTombs! is a 128-page PDF d20 supplement written by Luke Johnson and published by Dreaming Merchant Press. It is available as a $6.95 download.First BloodTombs! The Definitive d20 Tomb Adventure Design Guide is a PDF supplement designed for – what else? – helping the Games Master to design unique, dangerous, and deadly tombs, crypts, catacombs, and the like for great dungeoneering adventures.The product opens with a great discussion of the history and roles of tombs in various cultures, and the reasons behind the construction of various types of tombs. After a brief introduction of the various portions of the work to follow – guardians, traps, rewards, tomb markers, and the like – there is a set of sample adventure hooks to get your party started on a tomb investigation, and a list of common tomb features to add a little “dungeon dressing” to your tombs bare walls and chambers.Tombs! then delves into a detailed exploration of an entire host of tomb types, each of which includes descriptions of the how and why of that type of tomb, the method of construction or excavation, and the means of decoration, protection, and use, complete with sample levels for each tomb type. The types of tombs explored include catacombs, crypt planes (small demi-planes where the dead are interred), godsmourns (tombs for fallen gods), the necropolis (city of the dead), planar tombs, pyramids, and spiritstone sepulchers (fiendish tombs that double as gigantic soul traps). The descriptions of the tombs are well researched and quite well done – there is a lot of useful detail that would add to the flavor of a dungeon expedition, including everything from how and where the dead are interred within the tomb to how riches are stored and protected. Spiritstone sepulchers are pretty interesting creations; I also found the discussions of catacombs, the necropolis, and pyramids to add quite a bit to what could otherwise be fairly standard campaign fixtures. There’s also a short discussion of tomb preferences and variations for a number of d20 races and monsters that allows for a bit more “personalization” of a set of ruins or structures to fit the inhabitants.Tomb guardians are not overlooked; there are 16 different undead, constructs, and outsiders for use in defending your chosen burial ground. These include some truly odd and dangerous creations: the Doom Guardian, for example, is a sort of magical hermit-crab-thing, while the Issathraelen is a deadly outsider assassin. A number of traps are provided as well, including some fiendishly clever sentient traps (statted as monsters) – the Boom Ball (a new version of a very old standby), Flying Pit, and Slithering Glyph are great for providing your characters with some interesting trap challenges.The chapter on Rewards is the longest and most detailed portion of Tombs!. If you’ve ever struggled with coming up with new and interesting treasures that are more exotic and interesting than what is generated by the standard treasure tables, then this is the best reason to purchase Tombs!: 47 pages worth of tables to generate a stunning variety of unique mundane riches – everything from gems, jewelry, and artwork to gold-plated dinnerware and the platinum-featured kitchen sink (well, not really – but furniture is included). There is a short discussion on combining the mundane riches with magical items to build unique magical items that stand out by their materials, construction and details. Two magical treasure mechanics are introduced as well: spell stones (picture gemstones imbued with magic to function like scrolls or potions, but reusable) and arcane foci (magical aids used to enhance arcane spell effects).The appendices in this product contain a lot of meaty mechanics, as well. The treasure tables are here (nicely hyperlinked to the main document and table of contents), as well as a discussion of setting up tombs in d20 Modern and Sci-Fi settings. There are two new feats and three new spells related to crafting tomb traps and animating undead guardians. Two detailed appendices provide mechanics to allow the GM to customize undead and golems – building custom undead from the ground up on a power-for-CR-point basis, or adding special abilities to golems for a variety of XP and GP costs. The final 20-pages or so of Tombs! details the Valley of Despicar, a virtual mini campaign setting with a long history that explains the many tombs in the Valley. The Valley includes a description of a city, a number of NPC notables, castles, keeps, plus their evil denizens. There are intricately described and sketched tomb markers that tie the tombs in the Valley to their cultures – a good example for GMs to follow when developing tombs in their own campaigns. This section includes an adventure seed as well as a tomb mini-adventure that shows off some of the features found in Tombs!Critical HitsTombs! provides some very useful background information and descriptive flavor for the GM who wants to build more sensible, ecological tombs that feel like they have a reason for existing other than to play home to monsters to slay and treasure to be pillaged. After reading this book you’ll be ready to use terms like “polyandrium” to describe your creations and actually know what it means, why it’s there, and have it make sense when some horrible undead creation crawls out of it and destroys some tomb raiders.The treasure tables have to be seen to be believed – there is an incredible volume of interesting loot there. Using them you’ll never fall back into the “100 gold pieces, a gem, and a wand of cure light wounds” rut again.Critical MissesI hate to complain – the treasure tables contain so much neat stuff – but the tables themselves are pretty bulky and awkward. Forty-seven pages of treasure tables is as daunting as it is impressive. A suggestion for Dreaming Merchant to make this all more manageable – consider a software application for your treasure database, so we can harness some computing power and put all of those great treasures just a click away for the GM. I know I do all my game prep on a computer, and find flipping through tables (whether printed or PDF) to be tedious.The undead customization chapter could use some guidelines on creating “reasonable” undead, as well. The system works great for creating existing creatures, and for minor modifications to others – but it’s pretty easy to go hog wild and build something out of control because the CR-based system isn’t equipped to handle unhealthy synergies. It’s fine to say the ability to deliver 1d6 temporary ability damage adds ½ a CR to a creature, but the creature that deals 1d6 damage to three attributes is quite a bit more dangerous than another 1 ½ CR.Coup de GraceTombs! provides its game rule-derived information (monster and treasure stats, feats, spells, and undead/golem customization systems) as Open Content. Aside from some potential challenges with undead guardian challenge ratings the product meshes fairly well with the existing d20 system. A number of products have showcased similar bits and pieces for dungeon design as you’ll find here, but this product does live up pretty well to its “definitive guide” label. GMs planning a campaign where catacombs or tomb raiding will figure prominently will find this a worthwhile purchase.To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to Fast Tracks at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=421&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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