No comments about Classic Battletech: Map Set Compilation 1 (FPR10990) (Battletech).

No comments about Hackmaster: The Hacklopedia of Beasts Vol 2.

No comments about Steve Jackson Games Proteus.

2 comments about Conan: Hyboria's Fiercest Barbarians, Borderers and Nomads (Conan Roleplaying Game RPG).

1. Well when you think about Conan, you think Barbarian, of course. It's an automatic add-on to the name. In Mongoose's latest supplement for their outstanding Conan RPG, barbarians get their day in the sun, and give rules on players running barbarian, borderer, or nomadic player characters in the Hyborian Age. As with Mongoose's other Conan supplements the writers and editors show a very strong knowledge of R.E. Howard's Hyborian Age, its countries, and its peoples, which is essential. Ardent fans would immediately know if the writers had not done their homework on Conan's world.
   
   The first part of the book is essentially is an atlas of all of the various nations from Aquilonia to Zingara, describing the types of Barbarian, Borderer, and Nomads that will be found within each nation's borders. Along the way suggestions for various skills and feats are passed along that are unique to each region, allowing characters to be uniquely tailored by their Hyborian ethnicity. They also suggest various professions and class combinations that should be used for the character along with appropriate skills, referencing materials in other books such as Conan and the Road of Kings and Conan: The Free Companies. Kudos to the editors for noting what page in the various supplements the skills referenced can be found.
   
   The next part of the book gets into skills and feats. Anyone familiar with Conan or Robert E. Howard's other characters knows that they were capable of great feats of strength and endurance when pushed to their limits. The book addresses this with Feats of Might which allow for characters to call upon great reserves to lift very heavy objects, or to throw very heavy objects or to survive in the most dire of situations. What the Barbarians make lack in finesse and cultural skills, they more than make up for in outdoor skills such as advanced tracking, hunting, fishing, trapping, climbing, and evasiveness skills. They are also well versed in using what ever terrain they are in to the best of their advantaged and that has also been taken into account with terrain effects in regards to combat.
   
   22 new feats are included and are among the most eclectic you will find anywhere. The battle fury of barbarians is found in feats such as Extreme Might and Wounded Fury. Owing to their ability to scout their enemy there is a feat called Sense Weakness which gives the character a bonus of +2 to attack and damage rolls. Besides the feats there are special combat skills that these characters can learn as well such as Mounted Archer Cover where a character can fire his bow while using his mount for cover, and other mounted maneuvers like leaping onto one's mount or leaping upon a mount being ridden by someone else. The book also provides options for multi-classed characters for Barbarians, Borderers, and Nomads, providing the strengths and weaknesses of each multi-class along with any prerequisite races or skills.
   
   The cover art is outstanding (although for some reason the cover that Amazon is showing is not the same as the cover for the book I reviewed.) and the interior art ranges from good to outstanding. Hyboria's finest answers the need to be able to create barbarian characters that are more than just Cimmerian clones of Conan. With this well-researched supplement, you can create new and interesting player characters from any Hyborian land from Kush to Hyperborea. Another outstanding book from the people at Mongoose.
   
   Reviewed by Tim Janson



2. Hyboria's Fiercest (and the other's in these series) are basically divided into three parts:
   
   Guidelins to describing stereotypical character's for the classes broken down by each race. It contains some specific rules. This part is pretty useful, especially if you're not immersed in Conan-lore.
   
   Special rules and feats. This part is useful, but hardly essential to playing the game.
   
   Cross-classes for Barbarians, Borderers and Nomads. As far as I can see these cross-classes are pretty weak, given how flexible Conan is about switiching classes as you progress. All the cross-classes are worse than you could achieve by multi-classing freely.
   
   While the book contains some good stuff for playing the game, I don't think it's worth the money.

3 comments about City of the Damned: New Orleans (Vampire: the Requiem).

1. City of the Damned: New Orleans is a city sourcebook for Vampire: the Requiem, detailing vampiric politics in the Big Easy.
   
   This is not a popular book, and I don't understand why. I've seen reviews where people have complained about missing stats for Storyteller Characters (even though the developers have stated that the abbreviated stats are intentional), spelling errors and minor inconsitencies in flavour text, and based on that they have given the book poor ratings.
   
   Isn't the content more important than insignificant flaws like this?
   
   And City of the Damned offers solid content.
   It presents New Orleans as an exciting, deeply political city, with complex layers of intrigue that are nonetheless easy to understand and modular enough that the ST can include those parts of it he/she likes while happily ignoring the rest or letting it play out in the background.
   
   The three-way political struggle between Vidal, Savoy and Cimitere is just as complicated as the ST wants to make it, and there are sub-layers and smaller factions that can be involved if a more complex political atmospere is required to tell the stories the ST wants to tell.
   
   The book starts with one chapter detailing New Orleans history in deeper detail than the Appendix in teh core book does, and this chapter is littered with plot-hooks and story-seeds; enough to fuel several chronicles.
   Theres also a chapter about the city geography, which is somewhat lacking, as it requires a certain level of pre-famniliarity with New Orleans; nothing that can't be dug up easily enough on the internet or in the library though.
   There are three chapters devoted to the major Storyteller Characters in New Orleans: One for Elders, one for Ancillae and one for Neonates. This chapter gives stats, as well as deeper studies of the characters motivations and goals and some nice plot hooks that are easy to flesh out into stories.
   Then theres a chapter on Storytelling that focuses on helping Storytellers evoce the specific themes and moods most suited for New Orleans, as well as fleshing out the Storyteling hints provided in the core book and how they relate to New Orleans specificaly.
   
   Lastly, there is a pre-made story titled The Dead Travel Fast, which is designed to introduce the players to the three main movers and shakers of the Crescent City, Vidal, Savoy and Cimitere. This story is short and a little cheesy, but it gets the job done and finishes off with enough unanswered questions that it serves perfectly as an opener for a chronicle.
   
   All in all, I liked the book very much, and give it 4 out of 5. It doesn't quite reach to the greatest heights, but it's definately a very good city book, and if used correctly it can serve as teh basis for tons of interesting roleplaying.



2. I'm not very impressed by this book or it's content. After reading it I did not want to either play or story tell in this city. It contain what most of the city books from White Wolf does: History, Place Description, NPC and a Story. None of them was very good.
   
   The only nice thing I'm going to say is that it did not copy to much of the content in the Vampire: Requiem book, it supplemented it.



3. City of the Damned: New Orleans is the quintessential setting for Vampire the Requiem, a setting book for the New World of Darkness game. It is not essential to play either WoD or Vampire, but it does present a fully developed and fleshed out setting for both games.
   
   The opening fiction is entitled "The Coming Storm,". Written as though it were being spoken to a Kindred, it does a great job of establishing the mood for a city populated by vampires, their politics and their struggles.
   The introduction gives an overview of the book, as well as explaining to readers discrepancies found between this book, the V:tR demo, and the overview of New Orleans in the V:tR rulebook.
   
   "A Look Back at the Big Easy" is the first chapter of the book, and details the history of the Kindred in New Orleans. From the Choctaw vampire who first preyed on the mortals of the region (and who goes from being an elder vampire preying on the Choctaw to the Elder of the Choctaw Indians with no explanation later in the book) to the modern nights when Prince Vidal rules, there's a lot of detail here. It sets the social scene for the Kindred detailed later in the book, and provides several good adventure hooks for Storytellers to build upon.
   
   The second chapter, "Points of Entry," details modern New Orleans, covering its layout, points of interest, as well as detailing transportation and culture in the city. As in the last chapter, there are a few references to real-world things which readers will need knowledge of New Orleans from outside the book to understand. I really think this chapter is worth of praise for its (admittedly brief) description of the area around New Orleans--a lot of authors seem to forget that there are cities, towns, and other things within driving distance of New Orleans, and it was nice to see them remembered here.
   
   Some of the Kindred culture of New Orleans is covered here as well, with how the Prince handles crime and how the Lancea Sanctum of the area do things differently from their brethren.
   
   The third, fourth, and fifth chapters of the book are devoted to New Orleans' elders, ancillae, and neonates respectively. There's a lot of detail regarding their plots, interactions, and personalities, and aside from few minor quibbles (such as a racist American Kindred who seems to have a lot of respect and no problems following a foreign-born prince) the writing is good. Presented are sample NPC's that can be further detailed by individual storytellers.
   
   Chapter six of the book, entitled "Storytelling," in which tailoring of the setting is presented. Overall this chapter covers how to expand upon the setting and add depth to make individual chronicles more flavor.
   
   The final chapter of the book is a story to run your characters through. As it turns out, the opening fiction of the book was an introduction to the adventure, namely this one, and after reading it to your players/adapting it for a pre-game session this chapter continues the story.
   
   This book offers a lot of nice material that a Storyteller can use in his or her chronicle, but for them to do so they're going to have to do a lot of work on their own. For those expecting to have a setting handed to them without adding to it on their own may be disappointed. This book is a toolkit, dont expect to have a setting handed to you without YOU doing some work. Many of the new World of Darkness books are toolkits, they offer suggestions, ideas, story seeds and inspiration, NOT a monolithic book that TELLS YOU how to play. Overall this book is excellent if you plan on doing YOUR own work and developing the content therein to satisfy your chronicle and your players.

5 comments about Monsternomicon (Privateer Press d20).

1. I've been playing D&D for about 24 years now. This is my favorite rpg book - EVER. The art, although not in color, is worth the cover price alone. Add to this, 1) monsters that practically write adventures around themselves (and if they don't, adventure hooks are listed for each one), 2) Legends and lore - tidbits of information your PCs might have heard about the monster (listed by rarity), 3) Detailed information on what types of treasure each monster would have and so on...

   Each monster gets at least 2 pages (sometimes 3 or 4). Each has a story about how the author, Viktor Pendrake, encountered them. The trolls are absolutely fabulous, why would anyone use a normal D&D troll (with their ridiculous noses) after seeing the ones in the Monsternomicon. Plenty of undead, contstructs, and twisted races.

   Some of the stuff seemed kind of "out there" for my world, so I made them outsiders just because I couldn't stand the thought of NOT using them in my campaign.

   Buy this book, you'll agree that this is the standard to which all monster collections should be held. This puts the Monster Manual 2 to shame in every possible way.




2. The cover best describes this book: A fantastical steam-tech undead beastie breaking through all barriers to "reach out and touch someone." The book goes one step farther than the MM, MM2, and FF put out by Wizards: it gives you information about the beastie you would know if you had different levels of knowledge on the subject. This is a great tool for the DM, and also adds a flavor for the campaign setting, afterall, the players shouldn't be playing all-knowing monster manual rules-lawyers, right?



3. it seems to me that everyone that has reviewed this book works for the company or is, in fact, friends/family. this book is okay, but is not the end all be all that every other review claims. although, given the level of cheese i expect everyone already guessed that anyway. anyhoo, stop taking advantage of the system. or if you do, dont be so blatant...
   edit: well i see the other responses had been edited now do display something different...sheesh



4. I had never heard of the company before picking up this as a reference for a game that I am currently running. After flipping through I found a book that rivals (and surpasses in several areas) the quality of any bestiary out there (for the d20 system and others).
   The artwork is stylistic, brooding, and very fitting for the design of the world. The typeface is not simple block, but it is clear enough to read and quickly understand. In addition every monster comes with a small section on helping the GM work them into their game. This is a very nice touch that I wish other books would do. Since not everyone runs stock games - helping other GMs pull your material into their world is a great step.



5. I have browsed and read the local copy at my local store and honestly I liked the book and I am seriously considering buying it. There are a few pros and cons to the book. Lets start with the good bits -
   1) It has very nice section for each monster to assist the DM in playing the monster in a game. This is something that has been overlooked by most books.
   2) A new rule about how much a character knows about the monster. Listing their knowledge from Common to Obsure and based on Knowledge checks the DM can inform the players what their characters actually know about the monster. This is a very very good addition to any game - of course it would help if the players have never read the book.
   3) Interesting, varied and shall I say imaginative creatures. This you have to see for yourself.. some are kinda silly like automatons - some are too manacing like this CR 20-30 something dragon.
   4) New monster templates - now you can make Tough Monsters, Bloodthirsty Monsters etc.. very nice
   The Bad part about the book:
   1) No color pictures.
   2) Did they playtest this? You have to wonder - some creatures are waaay to powerful for the given CR.
   3) Not too easy to integrate into other campaigns - some details are Iron Kingdom specific.
   4) Not enough monsters - with all the additional details for each creature, there wasnt enough room for more monsters I guess.

1 comments about The Shaman's Handbook (d20 System) (Master Classes).

1. This isn't a power class, although a shaman can be quite powerful.

   This isn't a class that simply begs, borrows and steals from other classes to make an amalgam. This is a new, unique and interesting class, one that was definitely missing from the spiritual worldview of the d20 universe.

   Well-written, intelligent and obviously well-researched, I recommend this book to any players interested in playing a spiritist character and to any DMs looking to add some dimension to their "primitive" or indigeneous cultures.

1 comments about Alundra 2 Official Strategy Guide (Official Guide).

1. At first glance, it looks like a fairly comprehensive guide. But once you sit down and try to play through the game with it, it's flaws (and there are many) really begin to show. As Alundra 2 is a fairly linear title, there was a concentrated effort on providing a walkthrough of all the game's dungeons, rather than fill up pages with diagrams of towns and plot spoilers. This is a strong point of any strategy guide, this one in particular. However, being that a majority of the game is puzzle solving, a text based approach is simply not effective most of the time. The book mentions the puzzles to you, and merely says "solve the puzzle and the door will open" (or something to that effect) 50% of the time. This doesn't help players who can't figure out how to do this on their own (that's why they purchased the guide!). The few screenshots that accompany the generously margined pages are quite blurry, and thus do not help the player achieve any sense of orientation. And more often than not, these "screen shots" are placed 4 or 5 paragraphs after the solution (if there is one) is mentioned! Sometimes I had to flip back a page just to see what the caption was talking about. All of the major areas (and some of the minor ones) are mapped out in the back of the guide, but in such a small scale that it's impossible to make out anything from them, save where one room leads in to another. Every aspect of one game area was locked onto one or two pages (i.e., the first town, which has 2 areas, takes up one page, while one of the larger dungeons, with over 25 areas, also takes up one page--get the picture?). These maps are additonally incompletely labeled; you'll find no mention or pointing out of the powerful items, or half of the game's secrets for that matter. Mini-games are mentioned, but not in any bit of detail save where to find them. And forget about finding the puzzle pieces, special rings, and trading items. The only ones mentioned in the walkthrough are things I guarantee this author found; no effort was made to make this part of the book complete, and that was quite frustrating. The only other thing I consider a strong point to this book would be the enemy compendium and boss guide. Not that any of the game's creatures were that challenging, but an effort was made here to give the player as much information about the enemies as possible--this is as should be. But having this one piece doesn't make the guide outstanding. You're better off with an online FAQ to get you through the tougher puzzles and to help you locate the game's secrets.

3 comments about Tricks of the Doom Programming Gurus/Book and Cd.

1. Tricks of the DOOM Programming Gurus is an excellent book due to the fact it is easy to follow and *all* lessons are required to do otherwise the end WAD will not be complete (unlike some other how-to computer books) Pictures, Diagrams and tables are included to help the reader understand the various elements in Doom. An excellent feature of this book is that when you finish reading it you will be fully qualified to make excellent WAD files without ever needing to refer back to the book, and its another point of its easy-to-understand feature. Overall, the book is an excellent work and good. However, its only let-down is that Doom gets out-of-date very quickly with more modern games, and it doesnt teach you much for the future; however, this is of no fault of the authors.



2. Now that Doom has become 3d with all these new ports (DosDoom, Zdoom, DoomGL) people really want to learn how to edit levels, quickly and beutifully. This explains step by step. A very good book! I'd suggest it to anyone that wants to male there own Doom levels!



3. i got this book waaaayy back when it first came out and it has been a companion for me for editing doom which i still do as a hobby today. doom has to be the easiest game to edit on the planet and the possibilities are endless. this book is huge first off and theres a reason why. it gives you step by step instructions on level editing, graphics editing and miscellaneous editing to make your own custom doom. every chapter explains how to use the editors and also surprisingly tells how they work and how they can work for you. theres also another book that came out which is newer, 3-D alcemey however you spell it which is a continuation of this book. i recemmend this book to anyone with barely any computer programming knowledge who wants to make their own game out of doom.

No comments about Dungeon Crawl Classics The Heroes Arise (Dungeon Crawl Classics).