Publisher-Paizo

Price – ~$13

 

TL;DR-Great, well-done book, but you have to ask yourself if you will EVER use it- 98.75%

 

Art-Basic Pathfinder art.  If you like what they’ve put out before, you will like this too.  Well-done, clean, and non-obtrusive. 5/5

 

Mechanics or “Crunch”-This book is basically a well done splat book.  It adds to your character’s options pretty comprehensively.  Something to note, most of the book focus on divine characters.   There are non-divine options in the back, but much of the front of the book is spent focusing on giving divine options for each major god.  However, if you will not use the Mythic rules, this is not the book for you. 2.5/2.5

 

Story or “Fluff”-Well done again with an asterisk.  If you want more divine stuff, this is the book.  Learn about your gods and how you came from them.  Great.  If you want to be something non-divine, there is not as much for you.  This is right in the description of the book, so no surprises, but still a little disappointed. 2.25/2.5

 

Execution- This book has a nice, clean Pathfinder setup that really helps with finding anything as well as deciding if you need this book right from the front of the book.  If you like the previous books like I did, this is well done. 5/5

 

Book Quality- Again well-done.  Nice glossy paper with good binding and no ink smearing. 5/5

 

Final Thoughts-This is a good companion book.  My only problem is I will NEVER use this book since I usually play Pathfinder Society which doesn’t use Mythic rules.  I know this going in, so I’m not surprised.  I would want a bit more non-divine fluff/cruch, but all my negative comments are basically small things.  Well done, just make sure you are going to use this book before you buy it!  98.75%

 

Game: Elder Sign expansion Unseen Forces

Players: 1-8

Playtime(setup/play/clean-up): 60 minutes

Set Ending: Kind of

TL;DR- A fun game expansion that’s worth it only if you like the first game.  85%

How You Play: Think Cthulhu Yahtzee.  Players take the roles of different investigators in a museum trying to prevent the emergence of an old one.  Players roll dice on six different spaces trying to meet all the dice needs of a spot.  Can’t make a roll based on the what’s on the space?  Then you lose a die.  A player keeps playing until he rolls all the needed symbols or he/she can’t succeed.  Player keep playing until they get enough elder signs to seal away the evil or until the evil arises and kills them all.  The expansion adds new places, new evil monsters/ grand enemies, and the blessed/ cursed dice.

Theme: This game is a alternating awesome and horrible at theme.  On the grand scale, I feel Lovecraft through and through.  Each game feels tense and your life is on the line.  HOWEVER, no game is really that different.  The places that come up don’t change between Cthulhu or Yig.  The enemies you fight don’t really matter if its Azathoth or  Yog-sothoth.  And the events are a random pile of anything.  This isn’t bad, but its American style.  Its easily fixed, but that’s for down below.  2/5

Mechanics:  Roll dice, look at card, repeat.  That’s it. If you can play Yahtzee, then you can play this.  Nothing is too crazy.  The cards help when you need them.  Nothing seems overly broken.  Its hard, but its the kind of came where you cheer each other on as you lose as a group.  The expansion add just more stuff to play with.  I like the new mechanics of baring places from the players for the game.  5/5

Art/Components:  It’s Fantasy Flight, so it’s good.  Also, for a simple card and dice game, you get a crap ton of stuff.   5/5

Instructions:   Again, it’s Fantasy Flight, so it’s good.  And, the game just isn’t that hard to explain.  Even the added curse/bless die is pretty easy to figure out and comes with its own cards to help.  5/5

 

Final Thoughts:   If you like Arkham Horror and Elder Sign, then this is an auto add.  There is no question.  The new stuff is great, and the stuff they did add makes me pretty happy.  Its a bit more challenging, but I almost never lost the old game.  The theme is still the major problem as with the base game.  This won’t make you  instantly love the game, but it will give you some more hours with the game if you do love it. 17/20-85%

The Fix for Theme-There is a crap load of small cards and locations.  Why not label them with different icons.  Then have each elder thing have a icon list for me to make the decks with, exactly like Mansions of Madness?  Now the game I play drags me kicking and screaming into something!  Done and done!  Then you get a 100% rating from me!  Speaking of a game that does that a bit more….

And now the second review!

Game: Elder Sign: Omens

Players: 1

Playtime(setup/play/clean-up): 20 minutes

Set Ending: Kind of

TL;DR- An excellent iOS/Android game!-90%

How You Play: See above!  It plays almost exactly like the real game.  AND THAT IS AWESOME!

Theme: Remember above when I got mad and I wanted a smaller pool of cards for each monster?  THIS GAME HAS IT.  The card pool is limited for each monster.  Its not perfect because no cards directly reference the big bad, but its a hell of a lot more.  Also if you play a bit more, you get games that are crazy full of theme as you go after Cthulhu in a separate game board entirely!  4/5

Mechanics:  Roll dice, look at card, repeat.  That’s it.  It was awesome before, its awesome now!  I with I could go back a bit and look at some of the cards in my hand when I make some decisions on the iPad, but that’s an iPad/android  problem.  It’s caused me a make a few mistakes and cost me a game or two.  4.5/5

Art/Components:  Use many of the in game art stuff from the board game and adds excellent sounds! Creepy as all hell. 5/5

Instructions:   It’s got video walkthroughs. DONE AND DONE!  5/5

 

Final Thoughts:   If you like Elder Sign, then this is an auto buy.  There is no question.  Get the expansions because they are worth it!  Great game, with lots of theme.  New game modes for the expanded old ones.  Great graphics and music.  FANTASTIC! 17/20-92.5%

Publisher-Paizo

Price – ~$50

Pages-576

 

TL;DR-This is the basic rule book for the amazingly popular Pathfinder role-playing game.  It’s an phenomenal book that is well executed.  I have a few problems, but nothing that isn’t easy to overlook. 5/5

 

Art-The art style in this book sets the pace for all the other books in the Pathfinder RPG.  Its a nice style that always looks heroic and fits well with the world they created.  Damn fine stuff.

 

Mechanics-The mechanics of pathfinder are basically DnD 3.5.  Nothing too risky here.  If you liked 3.5, then you will like this game.  Any problems in 3.5 show up here.  That’s part of the good and bad with building of an established OGL system.  However, Pathfinder is worth the price of admission alone for simplifying the grapple rules.  That right there makes the game worth it.  HANDS DOWN!

 

Execution- The book is well organized with nice tables of contents and indexes to help you find what you need.  It describes the mechanics well, but as before, some of the minor problems from 3.5 creep into the execution of the book.  These are smaller issues, but they will end up making you go to the Paizo forums to get help.  Another problem I have is the lack of a bestiary in this book.  Most books at the $50 price typically include a small bestiary.  I know that many more will follow, but why include the GM guide and the Players guide together if you don’t include a smaller bestiary too?  Again, it’s a minor problem, but some food for thought.

 

Book Quality-  This book is well done.  Its heavy, and it should be for the price.  You feel like you get your value for the price.  The paper quality is high, so no smudging!

 

Final Thoughts-This is a good book.  The problems I have are nit-picking.  Good value for the money.  If you like 3.5, you will love this!

This was the last day of the con.  The whole con just came off the high of day two, and it was a much lower key day.  I was scheduled to help run demos at the Passport press booth, but due to how slow it was I wasn’t needed.  Seeing as I had a free day at a con, I made the most of it.

 

First Game-Qin by R and R games-Qin is an area control game.  Each player has a number of pagodas that they play on the board when you connect at least two tiles of the same color.  Each turn you place a tile, see if you get to place a pagoda, and then see if you connected a larger area then your opponent and thus steal his land.  Connect five areas of the same color and you get to put a double pagoda that lets you keep an area permanently. When a player plays his last pagoda, he wins.  It’s a pretty simple game.  I won, but it wasn’t a runaway victory.  I had some fun and we played a three player game in less than 30 minutes.  Good simple design.  I may pick this one up.

 

I then checked the dealer room if I was needed, saw I wasn’t, and then proceeded to buy a crap ton of stuff.  The winner of this con has to be Passport games for me.  There were some amazing deals at this con.  From Passport games, I bought Castaways (based on my play the night before) and Trajen (which was a steal at $40 bucks!).  Then, from AEG, I picked up Trains (last copy for $10 off), and Guild Hall.  The last purchase was the Conquest of Kumanjaro from Mage Wars.  Honestly, if there was more Mage Wars, I would buy more stuff.  I think I will make it my goal to get this game rolling in Jackson.  I love the format of a non-random CCG.  Then the wife and I moved to our last game before heading home.

 

Last game of the Con-Guild Hall by AEG-It seems stupid to buy a game before you play, but I had played this before with some friends and my wife hadn’t.  The game is very simple but deep!  Each player places two cards each turn.  These cards give up special abilities that are based on the number of same card you have in your guild hall.  Get a full color set and you get to trade them in for points.  First to 20 wins.  What makes this game deep is the number of combos you can build based on a simple deck of cards.  I lost this one, but it’s still a great game that I can’t wait to play some more.

 

Final thoughts on GrandCon-First things first, this con can NOT be at the same place next year.  And that has nothing to do with the place!  The expected Saturday numbers were ~250.  Actual Saturday numbers?  1200-1500!  That is amazing for a first time con.  Then again, Ed Greenwood way playing charity Lords of Waterdeep all day, the Hickman’s (Is the plural of Hickman Hickmen?) were doing panels and signing autographs all the time.  It looked like the entire Pathfinder army was out in force.  The GenCon Game library was in town.  There was NEVER a chance to not do anything.  For three whole days I gamed!  That is amazing!  This is a win.  Now this might not be GenCon or Origins, but man I had fun.  Great venders with amazing deals.  Got to see a bunch of my friends from the major cons.  My wife was a little big traumatized by the sheer number of people, but that’s just because there were WAY too many people in the small area of the con.  That said, I can’t wait till next year. I’m going.  I may try to get there earlier to join the Mage Wars Tournament and game a whole lot more.  My regret this year was I didn’t play that many RPGs or do any demos.  Next, year I will fix this!  See you guys next year at GrandCon!

The strange was I didn’t see a DnD presence at all.  There was a few scattered 4e and 3.5 games, but no DnD Next.  Maybe it’s me, but this should be at cons like to keep the interest up.  Food for though.