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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mr. Patient" data-source="post: 2010916" data-attributes="member: 4118">I recently purchased AEG's Toolbox on the <a href="http://www.montecook.com/arch_lineos106.html" target="_blank">recommendation of Monte</a><a href="http://www.montecook.com/arch_lineos106.html" target="_blank">Cook</a>, and I wanted to take the opportunity to address some issues that weren't covered in previous reviews.Toolbox is a GM's aid.  It is a 192-page, softcover book containing hundreds of tables of setting details, ideas, and encounters.  This is the sort of book you turn to when you are out of ideas, when you need to add a little flavor to your game, or when you are put on the spot and have to come up with details quickly.  The book retails for $26.95, and uses the 3.0 rules.Virtually all of the book is in the form of tables.  Most of them are meant to be rolled with a d20, which is occasionally a bit limiting, but usually appropriate enough.  The good news is that many of them are original and useful, and sometimes they are even witty.  They cover subjects such as: random NPC names broken down by race, random town names, castle and room contents, interesting corpses, bridge descriptions, pick pocket yields, different types of secret compartments, magic item histories, tavern menus, local flora and fauna, and many others.  These will be of tremendous help both in-game, when time is of the essence, and when preparing for games, when these lists will help get the creative juices flowing.  Many of the topics are not covered anywhere else that I'm aware of, although my library of d20 products is admittedly small.In addition to the tables and a little supporting text, there is an appendix which includes new armor and weapon qualities, NPC tactics, and hit location tables.  Aside from the hit location tables, which I personally have no interest in, these seemed fairly useful.  The artwork in the book is limited, but generally very good.  The cover illustration by Hugh Jamieson is quite nice.Unfortunately, there are some serious problems as well.  The editing of the NPC stat blocks is extremely poor.  For spellcasters, they are often wildly and jaw-droppingly mistaken as to preparation and casting requirements.  Many of the bards in the book have a Spells Prepared section, in addition to Spells Known.  One even has a spellbook.  Many wizards have a Spells Known section, but no Spells Prepared.  It seems that no two stat blocks even use the same terminology: sometimes a caster will have Spells Per Day, while other times it will be Spells Prepared, and other times Prepared Spells.  The inconsistencies even manifest themselves in different entries in the same table.The stats block problem is not limited to casters.  Sometimes aristocrats are called by their proper name (e.g., male human Ars2; this should be Ari2, but that's another matter).  Other times they are called nobles (male human Nob5).  Class abbreviations vary from table to table (Drd vs. Dru, Bbn vs. Brb).  Several commoners seem to have proficiencies in more than one weapon, without the requisite feats.  Some appear to be proficient with improvised weapons, as their attack bonuses do not reflect a penalty.  Sometimes skill bonuses reflect armor penalties, and sometimes they don't.  There are a great many errors in skill and attack bonuses overall.  Ever since the 1e Rogues Gallery, I've wanted a book with lots of generic, no-frills NPCs.  This book has them, but the stat blocks are so generally untrustworthy that they don't provide what they set out to provide: off-the-shelf characters that DMs can throw in a game without forethought or work.I also find that the encounter tables are not terrifically useful, and they take up an awful lot of real estate that could have been used more productively.  Encounters-by-terrain lists already appear in the DMG, and there are several more here which don't seem to be a significant improvement.  Toolbox also contains tables for encounters by creature type, so that one can roll a random magical beast, or a random construct.  These I think are particularly unhelpful.  There are very few situations where I can imagine needing an aberration and not any other sort of monster, and then wanting to randomize which aberration I get.  And as Psion points out, the tables merely recapitulate a portion of the Monster Manual entries for these creatures, so they don't eliminate the need for other books.  I think it would have been considerably more helpful if Toolbox provided a variety of pre-templated creatures, particularly those on the various Summon Monster lists.The strengths of the book are in the unusual and clever things it brings to the table, and which don't require a lot of rules adherence.  When the book goes beyond these areas, it is weaker, in my opinion.</blockquote>

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