Review (A Work In Progress)

[erian_7]

I've updated the review to my "final" entries for the Overall Production and Prologue sections, including notes of errata issues found in the prologue.

[Anunnaki]

Thanks erian_7! It is noted and appreciated!

[erian_7]

Sure thing! I'll be adding any errata/typo type things I find as I go along, but won't likely inlcude those in any final review as I assume they'd be corrected in the later updated PDF.

Oh, and I just added Chapter 1 as well (not too much there, since I'm not specifically reviewing ED setting info).

[erian_7]

Starting on Chapter 3 now. Obsidimen and trolls are going to be encounter-killers for Pathfinder at present!

[erian_7]

I've completed the race section of the review. I ran through several builds with the obsidiman and troll and both definitely seem to unbalance the game heavily at low and mid-level challenges. Pathfinder "game mastery" for combat optimization relies heavily on building up static modifiers that can be multiplied, and both of these races manifest this easily. They can take advantage of Power Attack without significant reducation in attack rolls, and stacking on the implications for Large size only makes this worse. When you throw in easy magical enhancements like enlarge person, there won't be any CR-appropriate challenge for a party that these guys can't one-shot. As such, a GM will either have to tweak encounters up so high the rest of the party is in serious danger or else let melee combat become a easy win. This advantage will diminish at higher levels as the impacts of spell casting become more prominent, but even through levels 12-15 these races will be problematic.

Windlings play out differently, and the more I fiddle with the run mechanic as a model for flight the more it bugs me. However, working around that limitation it is possible to make some nasty rogue and spellcaster builds with these guys that would drive GMs nuts. As with the big guys (unless creature type is tweaked to non-Humanoid) a reduce person puts these guys down to 9" tall. With a massive size bonus to Stealth, they can reliably snipe during combat to get ranged Sneak Attacks and that bonus damage isn't affected by size. As spellcasters, they can likely find an out-of-reach spot during a battle and cast with impunity. In the end, however, these options don't bug me enough to say it's busted--these challenges are in line with the Earthdawn original so I'd probably call them Fey to put an alternate spin on some of the spell exploits and be good to go. The flight mechanic, however, is just way to limiting for my tastes. Being unable to fly and shot a bow just seems off to me, but I'm probably biased from my original widling archer character!