Tome of Secrets

[TarionzCousin]

Has anyone bought or used the Tome of Secrets from Adamant Entertainment? The PDF is only $1.99 at RPGNow.com.

I saw the hardcopy in the store last week and it looked great. But finances are tough right now. However, for $2 I will get it soon.

Of course, I'm not in a Pathfinder game right now, but....

The Tome of Secrets is a collection of advanced and optional rules for players and game masters of The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

The 192-page rulebook will be available in stores in November, and in a special advance edition at GenCon in Indianapolis. This PDF version of The Tome of Secrets features:

* 8 new classes, including the Artificer, Knight, Priest, Shaman, Spellblade, Swashbuckler, Warlock and Warlord.

* 3 new races, including the Half-ogre, Ratkin and Saurian.

* Rules for character occupations (what your heroes did before they were heroes).

* A system for character drawbacks, fleshing out your heroes with flaws.

* New rules for The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, including Chases, Morale, Stunts, and more!

* Game Master tools including a random adventure generator, a monster modifier, and a generator capable of creating over one million magic items!

 

[El Mahdi]

I have it, and it's pretty good. Even though it's written for Pathfinder, it's just as useable with 3/3.5. Just think of it as a supplement to Unearthed Arcana. The chases portion is essentially a reprinting of Hot Pursuit!, so the book is well worth the price for that alone. A lot of the mechanics (like chases) would easily port into any system (not just 3.x), but even the Pathfinder specific ones should easily port into any 3.x game.

Personally, I think that this and Trailblazer are essentials for both Pathfinder and 3.x. Alongside Unearthed Arcana and the core 3.x books (or the Pathfinder rules), they can solve just about any problem one has with 3.x, and allow you to customize it to exactly what you want.

 

[Gorbacz]

Actually, I'll disagree. Tome of Secrets is rather horrible. It was wrriten without much understanding of Pathfinder rules and changes to 3.5 rules, and it shows.

Chase Rules are good and few misc. things are OK, and it is certainly worth 1,99 USD for the PDF, but as a whole it's a letdown.

If you are looking for classy 3PP material for Pathfinder, there's lots out there, but I'll give a shout out to 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming , Rite Publishing and Super Genius Games for consistently high quality.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Actually, I'll disagree. Tome of Secrets is rather horrible. It was wrriten without much understanding of Pathfinder rules and changes to 3.5 rules, and it shows.

Chase Rules are good and few misc. things are OK, and it is certainly worth 1,99 USD for the PDF, but as a whole it's a letdown.

Can you be more specific about what you didn't like and why?

If you are looking for classy 3PP material for Pathfinder, there's lots out there, but I'll give a shout out to 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming , Rite Publishing and Super Genius Games for consistently high quality.

Which of these publishers' works are your favorites and why?

 

[Gorbacz]

1. TOS:

This thread on paizo forums: paizo.com - Paizo / Messageboards / Paizo Publishing / Pathfinder® / Pathfinder RPG / Compatible Products from Other Publishers / Archives / Tome of Secrets: Errata and Questions thread describes some of the design and editing problems with ToS. Some of them got errate'd, some of them didn't.

Regardless of any errors, I found the classes underwhelming, perhaps except the Swashbuckler. This became doubly so with the advent of Advanced Player's Guide, since Oracle > Priest and Cavalier > Knight+Warlord.

The chase rules are neat (if somewhat overcomplicated), but overall seeing this book next to APG shows how much a difference makes a comprehensive player option book compared to a mashup of various 3.5 era products hastily updated to PF standards in order to get the book out for GenCon.

2. 3PPs:

4 Wands Fantasy Gaming - Luven Lightfinger's Gear & Treasure Shop. Paizo's own gear book (Adventurer's Armory) turned out to be something of a disasterpiece, but luckily the good people at 4WFG put together a very solid equipment catalog with special care for the oft-neglected mundane items such as household tools and clothing.

Rite Publishing - The high-level adventure Colliseum Morpheum by Clinton "Boom" Boomer is getting great reviews. Ironborn of Questhaven is a great Warforged substitute.

Super Genius Game - Where to begin ? With a pro designer like Owen K.C. Stephens it's hard to miss, but my favorites are: Genius Guide to the Time Tief and Advanced Options series for APG classes.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Thanks, Gorbacz. That's all good information. You should get a commission on the stuff I am now purchasing because of your post.

 

[VictorC]

Yeah, they'd have to pay me more than $1.99 to be caught dead with that piece of crap.

 

[Dark Mistress]

There is a few good things in it, some of it needs work. Mostly though it just has not stood up well in the test of time with products coming out afterwards and with people learning the rules better.

 

[frankthedm]

Flaws are usually badly implemented in TTRPGs. How are the ones in this book?

 

[Queranil]

I actually like the random advanture generator. It forces you to think out of your own box while having to be creative and come up with an adventure background.