Nearly severing limbs! When you succeed on an attack on a target with the off-guard condition, you can reduce the sneak attack damage by 1d6, 2d6, or 3d6 and the target gains Painful 1, Painful 2, or Painful 3 (DC 15 flat check reduce by 1). If you choose Painful 3 the target must attempt Fortitude save against your class DC. On a success, the target only gains Painful 2. If a target has the Painful condition, it can increase up to Painful 3, but to go from Painful 2 to Painful 3, the target must attempt a Fortitude save as above..
TL; DR-Would you like Konosuba or Goblin Slayer as an intro RPG? 93%
Basics– IT’S TIME TO D&DUEL! Gates of Krystalia is an isekai style RPG. Isekai is a genre of anime where a person from the “real” world dies and is offered the chance to go kill the demon king/bad guy in a fantasy setting where a god bestows power upon them to do so. It’s a power fantasy, but it is fun! Let’s dig into this game’s materials before the breakdown.
Base mechanics– This game DOESN’T use dice! It uses a standard deck of 52 playing cards. What’s interesting here is the number on the cards and the suit. The suits are tied to the four different ability scores. When you do a thing you draw a card and add your ability score to the score on the card. You beat the required number, you succeed. Don’t and fail. It’s an easier way for the non-dice goblins among us to get into the game.
Criticals- If the card you play matches the suit of the action, you double the result. Hearts are charisma, diamonds agility, spades intelligence, and clubs toughness. Want to rip down a door? It’s a toughness action, and if you draw an 8 of clubs, you get a 16 plus your toughness attribute. In combat the ace doubles base damage. And if its the suit you choose at character creation of your blessed suit, it doubles again!
Combat- Combat basically works the same way. Everyone including the Deux(Game Master) draws cards and adds modifiers for each character. High goes first. Now, this is not a tactics RPG. Think more Dragon Warrior and less Final Fantasy Tactics. Players and major named monsters draw a hand of five cards. Low ranking monsters just draw and hope for the best. When it’s your action, you choose a Combat Technique, and do it. If it targets someone else, players play a card from their hand at the monster. From there, characters and major monsters can play cards from their hand to create combos. Basically, can you make a poker hand. And whoever has the higher score based on played cards wins and has their action occur. This means you might get to attack during a monsters turn, but you will have less cards when it’s your turn. Once everyone has a turn, creatures with multiple cards draw up to their hand and you continue.
Damage– The interesting thing about this game is the deck. You take damage? Discard cards from your deck. Rest? Draw up cards from the discard and shuffle. You NEVER gain more cards/hit points.
Character creation and advancement- This is not a deep game. At character generation, you choose a race and one background power, a class, a class specialization, four combat techniques, and a blessed suit. It’s pretty simple. Levelling up is also simple as you now get to when the Deux decides. There is no XP to track. There are also a total of four ranks.
Additional Things- The base game book has a ton of other small things that you can add into your game. Like any good anime aimed at teens, you can get a haram of men or woman who you can romance. There is also mechanics to level up your base. There is madness and trama. This game can be as dark or a light hearted as you want.
Ok, let’s dig into this game.
Mechanics or Crunch– This is an intro RPG for someone who loves anime. The mechanics are simple and you don’t require any crazy complicated dice. I don’t hate anything that’s here. In fact, I want to run a game of this. The thing that is annoying is the lack of depth and the lack of XP. The game doesn’t get deep as you end up with less than 10 total abilities at the end of the game. It’s not really a deep crunch game. Not bad, but it’s a little simple. If your GM is a great person, then you will level up and kill the demon lord at a solid place. If your GM isn’t then you will end up with a slog of basically filler episodes. However, the rest of this book has solid materials for the players to have a blast playing and experiencing. I honestly want to build up a base in this game. It’s solid fun, but a bit simplistic. 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff– The writers knew their audience. From Sword Art Online to That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (yes, non-anime fans, this genre gets weird faster than the titles get long!) there is tons of stuff for the players to do. Heck, I didn’t even go into crafting. You can go gather materials from monsters and use that to build stuff. You want to play the Legend of Zelda food crafting part in this game? You absolutely can! And that’s awesome. This is exactly what the anime geeks are looking for. 5/5
Execution– This book is good, but it makes two cardinal sins. There are solid layout, great art, and hyperlinks to make navigation easy. Everything that’s here is good. What’s not here is an adventure. The adventure is a separate purchase for an additional $14. That’s not good! Next, there are no pregens, or at least none I could find. Give me a free intro adventure and 6 pregens for me to play with. For such a new system, you need this. I know its about five minutes to make one, but don’t make me! That’s a major sin in 2025. 4.5/5
Summary– I like what’s here. I honestly want to play this at my local anime/gunpla store. There would EASILY be a group who wants this exact game. They are not the most inclined to RPGs, so this would hook them easily and draw them in. The art alone coupled with the presentation of everything makes this a solid book. My issues are from a person who owns over 200GB of RPG books that I’ve kickstarted. I need a bit more depth for my go-to rpg. I also need a bit more intro for my intro game. Give me the tools to hook those players easily, and without having to drop another $14 on a one shot PDF that doesn’t even come with pregens. It’s not unforgivable by any means, but its a minor annoyance. But, if you are spending time putting together robots with friends as you watch japanese cartoons from the 90s like myself, then this is definitely the book you should pick up. 93%
You’ve spent much of your time on board the ships learning the ways of space. You gain the trained proficiency rank in Crafting and Piloting. If you would automatically become trained in one of those skills (from your background or class, for example), you instead become trained in a skill of your choice.
You also gain the Additional Lore general feat for Kasatha Lore.
Shoot from the shadows. For two actions you load less powder into a firearm and make a ranged attack with that firearm. Reduce all damage die from that firearm by 1 size on a hit, but firing the weapon does not reveal your location or presence to anyone.
You hinder your target with a shot. You Aim and then make a ranged Strike against your mark. If the Strike hits, the target gains Painful 1 (DC 15 flat check to end). If a target has the Painful condition, it does not increase.
Right into the joint! When you succeed on an attack on a target with the off-guard condition, you can reduce the sneak attack damage by 1d6 or 2d6 and the target gains Painful 1 or Painful 2 (DC 15 flat check reduce by 1). If a target has the Painful condition, it can increase up to Painful 2.
Frequency twice per day Trigger you critically fail a save, are subjected to a critical hit, or you choose trigger this ability
CTRL+ALT+DEL for the soul. As a reaction, you can fall prone, negating a critical hit or a critical failure on a save to a regular hit, end all conditions affecting you, regain up to half your hit points. You gain the slow 1 condition. You can even do this when you are under mind effecting conditions or while being controlled by spells like dominate. You end those effects and spells.
TL; DR– Another good step in the Blood Lord’s Path! 97%
Basics– YOU’RE A BLOOD LORD HARRY! You finally become blood lords, and now the plot is really heating up. Someone is attempting to poison the food supply and you… you get to play honor guard to the ghouls from the underdark. All in a day’s work for the lowest ranked, most powerful people in the kingdom.
Mechanics or Crunch– The mechanics of this adventure are solid, but there is one thing that bothers me. The crunch works here. There is investigation, combat, exploration, and event influence all baked in. Multiple different skills are used, so no one feels left out. The last dungeon is a bit of a big jump in terms of difficulty, but overall the mechanics are solid. My one major issue is the groups. You earn points with each group that runs the country, but I still don’t have a solid grasp of why. You earn points, but there is not a direct explanation of what to do with those groups. And this adventure has you get more downtime abilities to use those factions and build up more intrigue. Why should I do that? I need a bit more, and then I would feel like that’s a good use of my gaming time. 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff– This story is fun here. Usually just having necromancers is enough to make a problem. But in this one, the story is that someone is messing with the money. It’s destabilizing the country and making the nearby ghoul kingdom angry. Your job is to fix relations and stop that little problem. It’s a solid story that draws the players into the world. It’s not only “kill the bad people”, but stop the geopolitical problems before they begin! Also this book introduces a whole new religion, so if you want a ghoul character who’s extra special, this is the book for them as well. 5/5
Execution– Paizo makes good books. I love what’s here. I love layout, the sections, and the worldbuilding. It’s another solid book from Paizo. 5/5
Summary– I liked this adventure. It’s got a fun story, and the difficulty builds up to challenge the players. The story builds. The small start and low levels are paying off as big powers are coming to play and the players are becoming big power houses too! The book is solidly constructed, and full of the Paizo polish I come to expect. The one issue I have is the factions. I still don’t honestly know why my players and I should care. Beyond that, this is a fun next step in the Blood Lords adventure. 97%
Throat Punch Games 