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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010089" data-attributes="member: 18387">By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine RackSizing Up the TargetToolbox is a 192-page offering by Jeff and Dawn Ibach from Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) that retails for $26.95. It is softcover, with a fair number of illustrations from Jonathon Hunt and Beth Trott and a cover by Hugh Jamieson.First BloodIt happens sooner or later to every DM. The well runs dry. Normally, your font of ideas can scarcely be contained, but for whatever reason, tonight you’re lacking for a plot. Maybe it’s the fight you had with your girlfriend earlier today, or the exam that looms next Friday, but whatever it is, you’re stumped and tomorrow evening, six rabid gamers will be at your table, ready for a night of adventure. What do you do?The answer is at your fingertips. Reach for Toolbox, the new DMs’ aid from AEG. Toolbox, and that’s as fitting a name as any, is a collection of charts and tables, all designed with the intent of making your life as a DM a little bit easier. Need a plot? It’s a die roll away. Want a master villain? Toss a couple of 20-siders and you’ve got the beginnings of a good character. Ah, but Toolbox doesn’t stop there. It’s an in-game aid as well! A quick roll will give you the local weather, an encounter suitable to the terrain, or a name for that gnome that was supposed to be part of the flavor text whom the players are convinced is a major plot point. There are charts and tables for nearly every imaginable instance (and a few that are unimaginable). It’s almost enough to make you want to run a game just so you can roll to see what comes up next!The book is divided into chapters grouping like tables together. For example, in Chapter One, The Wilderness, one can find a collection of tables for determining the weather, local geography, flora and fauna, phases of the moon, disasters, civilizations, castles, and encounters. Chapter Two, Dungeons, includes tables for architecture, dressings, sounds, traps, interesting corpses (now there’s a table that’s seldom detailed in DM supplements), treasures, magical weapon histories, potion smells and tastes, and yet more encounters. Chapters Three and Four give the same loving detail to Cities and People, respectively.A small appendix finishes the book, which does include a few tidbits like new types of armor and weapons, some new weapon properties, and battle tactics for typical NPC classes that may be encountered during an adventure. A set of hit location tables (and resultant game effects) are also provided for those who wish to add a little more detail to combats. Finally, some half-page monster quick reference sheets could be useful to DMs. Just fill out the relevant details (and that’s all that’s on here) and you have them at your fingertips, ready to access at a moment’s notice. Critical HitsThe best thing about Toolbox is that there are a lot of tables here. I mean a lot, probably well over a hundred (though I haven’t counted). That’s a world of possibility for the effort of a few die rolls. And a lot of the tables are very well-done, with some solid information.Take the Mundane Road Diversion, as an example. Say your characters are walking along a path and seem to be getting antsy. “When do we get there?” they ask. You toss a d20 and consult the table.“Derek, make a Spot check.” If he succeeds, he notices a black-shafted orcish war arrow sticking out a nearby tree. It seems to have weathered well or else has only recently found its mark. What does it mean? Well, that’s for you (and your PCs) to worry about. The point is that a simple roll on the table has added some excitement to an otherwise dull journey.Several of the tables are even more useful. Take the Interesting Corpses table (you thought I was kidding, didn’t you?). Using this table, you can generate exactly what the title implies; interesting corpses. Not just another dead human, but a human skeleton that sports an extra pair of arms and small, pointed canines. Again, no details are filled in, leaving the GM plenty of room to expand on the possibilities or to leave it as a mystery for the PCs to worry over.There are even tables that provide an encapsulated magical weapon history and sites of ruins that establish not only a brief description, but a name and history as well. Now how useful would that be to your campaign? The encounter tables provide full stat blocks for NPCs (including spells and possessions) and vital statistics (AC, HP, saves, etc.) for creatures. Just browsing the book can spark some adventure ideas (oh, and there is a plot generator as well).Critical MissesFirst, the tables are great as far as they go. There’s the rub, see. The tables are designed to be rolled against using only a d20. Yes, it fits the system theme, but that means that, on average, a table will have only 20 entries. There’s a lot that could have been expanded on that wasn’t. There are some great ideas, but they’re limited in number. I’d like to have seen more tables of unique corpses, or magical weapon histories, or roadside encounters. I could do with less encounter tables. I can roll these up myself; give me something original, like the castle descriptions or the exhaustive list of governments. Along the same lines, you cannot, as the product claims, generate an NPC in ten minutes. You can get a good jump on creating an NPC in that amount of time, but the book does not randomize skills or feats, nor even spell selection beyond a small degree. In short, it’s a tool, not a replacement for your DM. You won’t be able to play solo just by having this book, though it will give you a step up on adventure design.Then there’s the description of the product. They say that its usefulness isn’t limited to fantasy games. I have to say that, in some ways, they are correct. The weather table and some of the NPC tables could certainly be used in any d20 System game (or even a non-d20 game with a little reworking), but by and large, the tables are geared towards a fantasy milieu.Some have said that the disorganization of the encounter tables is a flaw, but I disagree. It has never made any sense to me that an encounter table should be tailored to the level of the PCs. Instead, it should be tailored to the terrain (as is the case here) and the PCs should realize that there are things out there than can hurt them. After all, if you visit Africa, you don’t expect not to see lions simply because they are more than a match for you.Finally, I have to say that I don’t like the hit location tables. Don’t misunderstand me; it’s nice to have something like this for those players who insist on knowing exactly where they hit the creature, but the accompanying game effects seem just a wee bit overpowered. For example, a hit to chest implies a -2 penalty to Con until healed. They do note that the effects are for flavor, but I’ve a few players who wouldn’t mind seeing them instituted as mandatory rules. Maybe using them as the results of criticals (in place of the extra damage) wouldn’t be too bad.Coup de GraceFor DMs, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Despite it’s flaws, if you are running a d20 fantasy campaign, this work will be invaluable to you. It provides a wealth of ideas and many of the tables can be easily expanded on (especially if placed into a computer program designed to draw random results). Players won’t find the work nearly as useful, but there are a few tables that might aid them in developing their characters (such as racial names and distinguishing characteristics), so I can’t dismiss its value to them outright.By its very design, there isn’t much to offer in the way of Open Gaming Content here. That isn’t a flaw; it’s the nature of the beast. Still, they rule that anything with the exception of product and character names is pretty much open game. Where applicable, the book does adhere to the d20 standard.As stated above, DMs will get a lot more use out of the book than players will, but there’s a little something for everyone in here, so don’t be afraid to let your players borrow it once in a while. A $25 price tag for a book of tables is a little steep. I’d have liked it more if the price were less or if more unique tables (and fewer encounter tables) had been included. Still, if you can swing it, it’s definitely a worthwhile purchase.To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=&topic=3" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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