Julian Neale Archive
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Underworld Classes – Gemcaster
Posted on April 23, 2015 | No CommentsUnderworld Classes – Gemcaster This installment of the Underworld Classes-series clocks in at 15 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 10 pages of content, so let’s take a look! So, what is the gemcaster? The simple answer would be “a metamagic specialist”, but that would be reductive, so let’s first take a look at the proper hard stats. gemcasters are a 10-level PrC that require two skills at 8 ranks plus any three metamagic feats as entry-requirements. They receive d6, 2+Int skills per level, 1/2 will-save progression, 1/2 BAB-progression and 7/10 spellcasting progression – from the looks of it, a full caster PrC with […] -
Underworld Races: Zwerc
Posted on April 13, 2015 | No CommentsUnderworld Races: Zwerc This supplement clocks in at 20 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 15 pages of content, so let’s take a look! As with the other installments of the Underworld races-series, this one kicks off with a massive mythology of the subterranean races, a collective origin history that can be potentially transplanted from Aventyr into other settings, should one choose to do so – it should also be noted, that this section has been slightly modified in contrast to earlier installments of the series. From there on, the zwerc are described – amidst the numerous dwarven races forged from the ancestry of […] -
GM’s Miscellany: Random Wilderness Encounters
Posted on March 11, 2015 | No CommentsGM’s Miscellany: Random Wilderness Encounters This massive compilation clocks in at no less than 141 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page of advertisement, 1 page editorial,1 page ToC, 1 page advice on how to read statblocks, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with no less than 134 (!!!!) pages of content, so let’s take a look! Now, first of all, I have to commend the fact that this massive compilation actually sports short author bios for all contributing authors – generating awareness and reputations for authors is pretty important in my book. Beyond the ToC listing ELs and XP-values, we receive a massive 3-page table of statblocks by CR, which range from none (for e.g. […] -
Underworld Classes: Masters of the Web
Posted on March 9, 2015 | No CommentsUnderworld Classes: Masters of the Web This installment of the Underworld Classes-series clocks in at 17 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 12 pages of content, so let’s take a look! We kick off this pdf with a short flavor text before we are introduced to the mistress of the web rogue archetype. Upon meeting a creature, these rogues may modulate their speech patterns on a successful Linguistics-check to grant them bonuses to social skills when dealing with said target. if she exceeds the DC by a significant amount, these scaling bonuses double. Following the theme, the mistress also receives detect thoughts as an […] -
Underworld Classes: Stonespeaker
Posted on March 5, 2015 | No CommentsUnderworld Classes: Stonespeaker This installment of the Underworld Classes-series clocks in at 18 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 13 pages of content, so let’s take a look! Stonespeakers are a new 20-level base-class that receives d8, 4+Int skills per level, proficiency with simple weapons, flails, hammers and picks as well as light and medium armors and shields. They also receive 3/4 BAB-progression and good Fort- and Will-save progressions. They also receive so-called secrets of the stone, beginning with 2 level 1 secrets at first level, increasing the maximum level available by 1 at 4th level and every three level thereafter to a maximum […] -
Underworld Classes: Psilocybist (Revised Edition)
Posted on March 5, 2015 | No CommentsUnderworld Classes: Psilocybist (Revised Edition) This installment of the Underworld Classes-series clocks in at 23 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 18 pages of content, so let’s take a look! So what is the psilocybist? Well, the first and easiest answer would be: A Prestige Class. To be more precise, one has to be aware of perhaps the coolest domain I’ve read all year, AAW Games’ mushroom domain, as also shown in the Underworld Races: Funglet-pdf. Since I went into detail there, here’s the brief run-down – the domain sports explosive shuriken-style shroom caps, the option to partially transform into a jumping shroom/man hybrid […] -
Underworld Classes: Underterror
Posted on February 24, 2015 | No CommentsUnderworld Classes: Underterror This installment of the Underworld Classes-series clocks in at 16 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 11 pages of content, so let’s take a look! What is the underterror? Well, it is a tradition mostly practiced by the dread Gitwerc, the tyrannical dwarves of AAW Games’ underworld and crunch-wise, a 20-level base class. The underterror receives d10, 2+Int skills per level, proficiency with simple weapons, axes, hammers and picks as well as light and medium armor and shields (excluding tower shields). They also receive 3/4 BAB-progression and good Ref- and Will-saves. At first level, they receive darkvision 60 ft, which increases […] -
Underworld Classes: Psilocybist
Posted on February 23, 2015 | No CommentsUnderworld Classes: Psilocybist This installment of the Underworld Classes-series clocks in at 23 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 18 pages of content, so let’s take a look! So what is the psilocybist? Well, the first and easiest answer would be: A Prestige Class. To be more precise, one has to be aware of perhaps the coolest domain I’ve read all year, AAW Games’ mushroom domain, as also shown in the Underworld Races: Funglet-pdf. Since I went into detail there, here’s the brief run-down – the domain sports explosive shuriken-style shroom caps, the option to partially transform into a jumping shroom/man hybrid and the […] -
Underworld Races: Hoyrall
Posted on December 4, 2014 | No CommentsUnderworld Races: Hoyrall This supplement clocks in at 20 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 15 pages of content, so let’s take a look! As with the other installments of the Underworld races-series, this one kicks off with a massive mythology of the subterranean races, a collective origin history that can be potentially transplanted from Aventyr into other settings, should one choose to do so. So what are the Hoyrall? Apart from an interesting name (if you’re Scandinavian or familiar with the languages, you’ll get what I mean), they are a race of parasitic creatures from the stars, brought here and held in check […] -
Underworld Races: Gitwerc
Posted on November 20, 2014 | No CommentsUnderworld Races: Gitwerc This supplement clocks in at 20 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 15 pages of content, so let’s take a look! As with the other installments of the Underworld races-series, this one kicks off with a massive mythology of the subterranean races, a collective origin history that can be potentially transplanted from Aventyr into other settings, should one choose to do so. From there on, the gitwerc are described – amidst the numerous dwarven races forged from the ancestry of the dvergr, the gitwerc could be called those most out of line with conventional dwarvenkind in other campaign settings – not […] -
Underworld Races: Dweorg
Posted on November 17, 2014 | No CommentsUnderworld Races: Dweorg This supplement clocks in at 20 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 15 pages of content, so let’s take a look! As with the other installments of the Underworld races-series, this one kicks off with a massive mythology of the subterranean races, a collective origin history that can be potentially transplanted from Aventyr into other settings, should one choose to do so. From there on, the dweorg are described – amidst the numerous dwarven races forged from the ancestry of the dvergr, the dweorg could be called those most in line with conventional dwarvenkind in other campaign settings – apart from […] -
Underworld Races: Funglets
Posted on November 3, 2014 | No CommentsUnderworld Races: Funglets This supplement clocks in at 21 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 16 pages of content, so let’s take a look! As with the other installments of the Underworld races-series, this one kicks off with a massive mythology of the subterranean races, a collective origin history that can be potentially transplanted from Aventyr into other settings, should one choose to do so. From there on, the funglets and their variants are described in evocative details that goes beyond the thankfully present age, height & weight tables before we delve into the racial traits of the funglets. Funglets receive+2 Con and […] -
GM’s Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing
Posted on October 8, 2014 | No CommentsGM’s Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing This massive tome clocks in at 399 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of ToC, 3 pages of short author bios (which should be included in any roleplaying game supplement – seriously, help the talented folk that craft these books get all the recognition they can!), 1 page advice on how to read statblocks, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with no less than 388 (!!!) pages of content, making this one of the longest books I’ve ever reviewed, so let’s take a look, shall we? When I reviewed “Shadowed Keep of the Borderlands” and similar adventures by Raging Swan Press (if you haven’t checked […] -
Underworld Races: Drow
Posted on October 7, 2014 | No CommentsUnderworld Races: Drow This supplement clocks in at 24 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 19 pages of content, so let’s take a look! We kick off this installment of the Underworld Races with a general subterranean origin-myth for the races that inhabit the lightless depth of Aventyr – which can, coincidentally, be introduced with relative ease into other settings. Now part of this myth is the origin of the most famous of subterranean, evil races – the drow. The dichotomy and splitting of the elven races takes a more classic turn in the example of Aventyr than in Golarion’s take on being drow. […] -
Underworld Races: Dvergr
Posted on October 6, 2014 | No CommentsUnderworld Races: Dvergr This supplement clocks in at 21 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 16 pages of content, so let’s take a look! We kick off this installment of the Underworld Races with a general subterranean origin-myth for the races that inhabit the lightless depth of Aventyr – which can, coincidentally, be introduced with relative ease into other settings. Now part of this myth is the genesis of the dwarven races, of which the dvergr would be one – to be more precise, the race is most in line with the dueragr base race, though it is modified further with some minor skill […] -
Underworld Races: Ahool
Posted on October 6, 2014 | No CommentsUnderworld Races: Ahool This supplement clocks in at 28 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 23 pages of content, so let’s take a look! We kick off this installment of the Underworld Races-series with an extensive history of the underworld’s genesis -a subterranean origin myth, if you wish – from the banishment of the infernal forces of HEL in earth’s core to the forging (and splintering) of the dwarven races to the rise and fall of the dracoprime and the arrival of the colloid (the contribution of your’s truly to the lore of Aventyr) , we get an interesting, well-crafted origin myth here, one […] -
GM’s Miscellany: Urban Dressing
Posted on October 6, 2014 | No CommentsGM’s Miscellany: Urban Dressing This massive compilation of Urban Dressing-content clocks in at 239 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 1 page editorial, 2 pages of ToC, 1 page statblocks by CR, 1 page advice on how to read statblocks, 2 pages of author bios (yay for those – seriously, more books should have them to generate name recognition), 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with a massive 228 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we? Okay, so this massive book contains the originally free tavern game Dragon and the Thief, So what’s it Called Anyway, So what’s for Sale, Anyway I +II, So what’s the Tavern Like, Anyway I+II, random […] -
Legendary Classes: More Covenant Magic
Posted on June 23, 2014 | No CommentsLegendary Classes: More Covenant Magic So this is the long-anticipated sequel to one of my top-ten books of 2013, the expansion to David Nicholas Ross’ superb covenant magic book! A hard legacy to live up to, so let’s take a look! Page-wise, we get 35 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page ToC/editorial, 2.5 pages of SRD, leaving us with a massive 30.5 pages of content, so what do we get here? Now I *assume* you’re familiar with the exceedingly cool, but also complex medium class from Legendary Classes: Covenant Magic in this review, so if you’re not, please check that one. Okay, back? Great! We kick off with not only a short side-box covering the role of mediums […] -
Dungeon Dressing: Simple Magic Traps
Posted on January 16, 2014 | No CommentsDungeon Dressing: Simple Magic Traps This installment of the Dungeon Dressing-series is 12 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page advertisement, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover, leaving us with 7 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we? So, this time around, we’re in for an unusually crunchy supplement of the dungeon dressing-series, one that provides us with the hard stats of none-too-complex traps. Said traps are grouped by page in various categories: Alarm traps, Harming traps, Boon traps, Impeding traps, Protective traps and wounding traps each get one page of spotlight for various different representations of the respective concepts. Now let’s take a look at what we get […] -
100% Crunch: Orogs (Greater Orogs)
Posted on August 12, 2013 | No Comments100% Crunch: Orogs (Greater Orcs) This installment of the 100%-crunch-series is 24 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages advertisement, 2 pages editorial, 1 page foreword/ToC, 1 page advice on reading statblocks, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 15 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we? We kick off this pdf with a list of statblocks by CR – this time they range from CR 1 to CR 9. In case you didn’t know about orogs – they are the meaner, bigger cousins of orcs and get their full racial stats in the pdfs. Attribute-wise, tehy get +6 Str, +4 Con, -2 Wis and Cha, darkvision, 3d8 racial HD and count […]