Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2009982" data-attributes="member: 172">ToolboxToolbox is a book in AEG's one word titled series of supplements for d20 System fantasy. Toolbox is essentially a collection of tables for use in quickly generating details for a fantasy campaign.The book has writing contributions by Dawn Ibach, Jeff Ibach, Jim Pinto, Edgar Rosero, James Sharkey, Cheryl Van-Mater Miner, and Phillips Van-Mater Miner.A First LookToolbox is a 192-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $26.95. AEG is the only d20 System publisher that I own any softcover books by that are this large, so I can only compare the price of the book with AEG's other books of the same price. The book is has fewer pages for the same price than AEG's Mercenaries and Dragons, though the text density in the later AEG books is higher than the earlier books like Dragons.The cover of the book is a light gray textured background with piping in a similar style to other books in the series. The front cover (by Hugh Jamieson) depicts and armored man wielding two knives against the backdrop of a stone wall.The interior of the book is black-and-white. The interior is illustrated by Jonathan Hunt and Beth Trott. The book is sparsely illustrated, but the illustrations are generally good.The text used in generally small and I didn't notice any table gaffes in the flurry of tables. The text density is generally good. However, some of the tables have entries in some columns that are significantly longer that in other columns, producing a bit of whitespace in some tables that might have been avoidable if the table organization was tweaked a bit.A Deeper LookAs mentioned, the majority of the book is tables covering a variety of topics. Every last one of the tables uses a d20. In some cases, there are more than 20 possibilities for a given topic, meaning that some topics have multiple d20 tables devoted to them. This wouldn't be a problem except that there are no "steering" tables to randomize between these tables for quicker result. The DM is left to pick or come up with his own randomization. This isn't a huge omission, but such tables could have served to make the book better live up to the ideal of quick random results.There are four major chapters in Toolbox, corresponding to major categories that need details in a d20 Fantasy campaign: Wilderness, Dungeons, Cities, and People. These topics give good general coverage, and there is only one general category of things that needs detailed in a typical campaign that doesn't get its own chapter here: organizations.The Wilderness chapter includes a rather wide variety of topics, including such things as local flora and fauna, hunting results, settlement details, castle composition and activities, and encounter tables. The NPC and encounter table contain game statistics. The NPC encounter tables come in categories like wilderness NPCs, bandit NPCs, war parties, druids and druid attendants, and villains. Some of these tables have bare statistics and some have complete statistics block.The monster encounter tables, by way of contrast, have statistics, but they are arranged into columns instead of statistics blocks. As some columns (mostly the special attacks and qualities column) are longer than others for many creatures, this creates a bit of white space. Further, important statistics like HD and CR are omitted, which means that the encounter tables fall a little short if the point of the statistics was to prevent you from having to refer to the Monster Manual. The Dungeons chapter includes a flurry of tables to define dungeon details. Unlike the random dungeon tables in the classic AD&D 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, the tables here aren't really suitable for building a dungeon from the ground up. Rather, they appear more to "fill in the blank" about details of a dungeon. Tables include such sundries as the general type of a dungeon, what the entrances, details of walls, floors, doors, and corridors, room shapes, and dressing details like room contents, sounds, personal effects, lighting, and more detailed and specific tables like captives and interesting corpses. Of course, what dungeon would be complete without traps and other means of hiding and guarding treasures? Have you ever had players scour that wizard's laboratory for something useful? Well now you can fill in the details with a variety of tables devoted to the topic, including tools and book titles.Again, there monster encounter tables for dungeons, sorted by type. The tables have the same problem with whitespace due to the SA/SQ column, and the lack of CR and HD entries which make it difficult to decide if you really should toss the encounter at the players and to handle magical effects that depend on HD without referring to the MM.The Cities chapter provide a great menagerie of details for fleshing out settlements. Details such as the size of the settlement, architecture, government, coinage, and trade goods are all handled, as well as street names, businesses, churches (and the associated religions) and other sites of interest in the city. A diversions table provides a little spice to players visiting a city. The nobility tables describes families and individuals that may hold sway in a city.Other tables delve into further details that some adventurers may need to know, such as taven names, menus, and patrons, and the results of a pick pockets roll.As with the Wilderness chapter, there are encounter tables including NPCs (some merely by name/description, some fully statted out). There is a monster NPC table arranged similarly to those in prior chapters, but it is understandably briefer, having only a single "sewers" category.The People chapter includes a lot of tables to flesh out a PC or NPC. There are names for males and females of a variety of races, as well as names of groups and honorifics. Extensive tables provide character concepts and motivations, quickly generate possessions, encounter conditions, and some game statistics. Again there are NPC tables, both brief descriptions and detailed NPC adventurers.There is a brief appendix with quick excerpts from other AEG books (mainly Mercenaries), including equipment, weapon qualities, typical tactics by class, a brief critical hit chart, and monster quick reference forms.Finally, the book has a fairly thorough index, essential for finding the table you need in a hurry.ConclusionAEG's expressed intent of their one-word series of books is to create books that will be long-term staples in d20 System games. This book succeeds more than any to date. In the short time I have owned this book, I have already made extensive use out of it at every game, quickly generating details such as the personality of an intelligent weapon in the game, a familiar, names of nobles, and the type of animals in an area. The book does seem to achieve it's intended purpose of being a useful collection of tables during a game. If you frequently run off-the-cuff or have players that ask odd questions which you cannot satisfactorily answer quickly, or if you just need a little help "filling in blanks" in your campaign, I think this book is a very good purchase.As mentioned, I think it could have been better in a few small ways. The monster encounter tables could have been a little better organized. Further, I found the obsession with just using the d20 a little strange. Yes, I know this is the d20 system, but the d20 part is modifiable resolution rolls. None of these table rolls are modifiable (would that they were) and a cursory glance at the DMG should show that the intent of using d20s doesn't extend to tables.Sections of the book that feature multiple tables could have used more in the way of "steering tables." Finally, some of the tables could have been a bit more situation specific. For example, weather tables might have accommodated modifiers for climate, and the encounter tables might have been arranged by power level and used modifiers to tweak it to the power level of the party.One last note. The ad copy you see on the product page indicates that Toolbox can be used in a variety of genres. This is not so. With a few minor areas of overlap, this is primarily a fantasy supplement.Grade: B+-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

Verification