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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greatwyrm" data-source="post: 2592516" data-attributes="member: 479">UpfrontI received Unorthodox Knights for free as part of the pdf review program.  This is not a playtest review.SummaryUnorthodox Knights is a 47 page pdf (in printer friendly mode) which contains about 43 pages of material.  The rest is the cover, table of contents, and OGL.  There are six 20-level classes, one new prestige class, and some new magical items.ClassesThe format of the new classes is easy to follow.  They begin with a short history of how each class originated.  The backgrounds make mention of some world-specific items once in a while, but they would be easy to change to your own campaign world.  This is followed by a summary on what sort of adventures would appeal to the class, their important characteristics, typical alignment and religious views, backgrounds, usual races, and how the class views and interacts with other classes.  Finally, each class has a listing of game statistics and abilities, accompanied by a table in the format we’re all accustomed to from the PHB.The classes include:--Battle Knight:  a heavily armored warrior that is a straight-ahead fighter--Chevalier Amour:  an almost swashbuckler knight with a romantic side--Knights of Frost:  hard and cruel warriors with cold powers--Knight of the Road:  nomadic swordsmen--Knights of the Broken Tusk:  an interesting Orcish order--Lanternian Knights:  eternally seeking redemption--Blind Blade:  a prestige class for blind warriorsMagic ItemsThe new magic items are called Baubles and Urus.  They are gems or tiles that meld with other items to enhance the original item’s abilities.  If you’re familiar with Diablo II, think along the lines of gems and socketed items.The GoodThere’s a lot to like in Unorthodox Knights.  While some of the classes don’t appeal to me as a player, as a DM, there’s nothing here too off the wall.  All of the classes could be dropped into a typical fantasy campaign with little effort.  Most of them are character themes we’re already familiar with from movies or literature.  The “tank” warrior, romantic knight, blind swordsman, etc.  The Baubles and Urus are also an interesting new development.  The BadThis part is a little hard for me.  I think there are just a number of things that could have been done better in this book.  None of them are really big by themselves, but in total, I just wasn’t happy.For starters, there are a number of class abilities that give odd bonuses.  I don’t mean odd as in “not even”, but odd as in strange.  Sometimes, the ability for a class level doesn’t seem to match up in power to feats or abilities from other classes that offer similar abilities (e.g. the Knight of Frost’s “Frost Smite” is pretty powerful compared to the similar paladin ability).  I’m also leery of classes that offer Natural Armor bonuses, which both the Battle Knight and Knights of the Broken Tusk receive.Some of the class features meant to balance the characters as hindering factors are either too much or not enough.  The Battle Knight takes a penalty to all the social skills.  I can’t ever see this being a drawback for a character who’s main method of solving problems consists of getting bigger armor and charging more often.  On the other end, I’m curious as to how many Knights of Frost survive to higher levels, since their vulnerability to fire damage is so high, a single flask of Alchemist’s Fire could quite possibly take a first level KoF straight to -10 hp on an above average roll.Sometimes bonus feats are handled strangely.  Why give an Exceptional Ability a special name and then basically make it a bonus feat?  It’s just confusing.  Also, why reprint the text of all the bonus feats (all standard PHB feats) in the character abilities?The Baubles and Urus are neat, but also come up short.  No rules for creating them.  No clear idea of how common they are.  No gp values.  No caster levels.The last items aren’t game specific:--There are some typos and grammar errors.  They aren’t everywhere, but there are enough to notice.  For example, one passage makes it sound like Baubles and Urus might be artifacts.  A couple of paragraphs later, it sounds like some ancient kingdom used to just crank them out.  Similarly, Knights of the Road have an ability that gives them a bonus to called shots, for which no rules are presented.--I’m no prude, but I don’t need naked women in a game book.  If you’re kid gets caught reading the Knights of the Road section in Study Hall, expect a detention notice.Bottom LineUnorthodox Knights could be a really good book after a revision.  There’s nothing here bad enough to warrant throwing the whole thing out.  I just think that as good as the underlying ideas are, the execution could have been better.</blockquote>

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