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Spheres Bestiary: Aberrations
by Antoine M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 12/24/2021 12:39:40

Not only does this book feature horrifically overpowered general content, basic no-prerequisites feats that power creep the signature ability of a sphere's specific +5 or more CR template, it also tries to imply the very thoughtful and helpful guidelines for determining Magic Skill Bonus/Defense in order to prevent certain types of monster hitdie from being entirely uninteractble should not be used for no tangible reason.

The drow noble+++ the book offers sets poor precedent instead of just using racial hitdie to demonstrate a superior creautre on the species level.

Lastly, the pre-written monsters and templates are horrifically broken and would be nearly unusable as a DM due to how little a player can do to fight fairly, seemingly only here to give bad DMs plausible deniability for poor encounter design.

Amalgamate creature powercreeps the Mythic Agile template and then some. Antimemtic creature is just a spiteful jab at the only way players are supposed to learn how to use their abilities correctly.

The presented monsters are built so optimally using character levels and, to borrow an analogy from competitive card games, netdecked meta strategies, it would seem the horrically powerful and game-balance-busting options written by the author in books prior are encouraged if not required to beat these creatures. Which is sadly a trend for the Bestiaries penned by Matt Daley and published throgh Dead Drop Studios.

I was hoping for another book with the Quality of Beast Tamer's or Undead and Immortal Forlorn, but it seems I was mistaken.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
Spheres Bestiary: Aberrations
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Demons of the Abyss: Rank and File
by Antoine M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/24/2021 12:48:18

Unlike Fiends of the Cosmos, I feel like Demons of the Abyss: Rank and File actually achieves the goals of what a Spheres-using Bestiary should look like. This gives DMs the tools they need to run their favorite monsters from the Abyss in a Spheres game without introducing headache or argument causers like bringing back the Sacred Cow that is Wish.

I eagerly look forward to more bestiaries in this format, and the latter half of this bestiary which I picked up today.

I hope this becomes the quality I can look forward to from DDS bestiaries, as I felt fiends from the cosmos was a harsh decline from Magical Beasts and Climactic Encounters and Undead and the Immortal Forlorn.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Demons of the Abyss: Rank and File
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Mythic Champions of the Spheres
by Victoria C. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/12/2021 18:56:38

shit's busted but it's mythic so i guess it's fine



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Mythic Champions of the Spheres
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Spheres Apocrypha: The Inheritor and Improved Atavism Heritages
by Victoria C. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/12/2021 18:42:29

Look at that chonky feat. Improved Atavism is amazing at helping satisfy specific bloodline flavours. Each different option has some cool stuff that can fit in most builds, which often leads me to not even looking at what the abilities offer mechanically, and just picking stuff that I think fits my character and it typically works out fine. Improved Atavism is some great work.

Inheritor Sorcerer is perfect for helping achieve that level between Bloodrager and Sorcerer, where you do want to do some melee stuff, but still have most of your stuff focused on magic. Finally those sorcerer bloodlines that have to do with having weapons enchanted or natural weapons or the like finally can be used to an actual effectively-ish level, and again, the author was quite careful not to make it creep on anything in particular, making sure to make a note too about not allowing some of its abilities on a couple of the sorcerer bloodlines that might be overtuned in comparison to the others. Now some might say, "But sir, Full Caster and 3/4 BAB? That's far too much, this is overtuned!" And I definitely thought so at first too. But when you look over the Inheritor sorcerer again, as well as what the base Sorcerer tends to offer, it really isn't too much. Sorcerers I feel have always needed a bit of a hand, given their 2+Int skill ranks, lack of class skills, and a fair few bloodlines having rather mediocre abilities (and yes, I know of the few that are busted). Unlike most 3/4 BAB classes too, the sorcerer typically does not have a class skill method to boost their to-hit, such as studied target or magus arcanas. So after I realised that, and attempted to build one, yeah, it's a pretty fine class.

Definitely looking to more content from this author, they clearly seem to have an obvious level of care for the balance and health of the system by introducing neat flavourful options that aren't just bizarre minmax bait.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Spheres Apocrypha: The Inheritor and Improved Atavism Heritages
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The Catgirl Handbook
by Victoria S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/12/2021 18:34:23

insert cat emoji here

Always excited to see stuff from the April Fools books, and this is probably my favourite so far. A smatter of horrid puns (perhaps some TOO overused, but you only have so many cats you can work with) belies a bunch of legitimately neat and balanced archetypes and talents. Matagot I particularly enjoy, having an extremely fun theme I'm sure many players have always wanted to have a go at (playing as a familiar), while actually making the Wraith class a bit more reasonable, and the Nyancaller archetype was a cool way of bringing in some base summoner evolution style stuff back into the mix. Lots of fun little things here and there, nothing particularly egregious, though I had slight concerns about the Purring feats making Bards less relevant, but it seemed to work out fine as feat costs. The little back page of 'Here's some non-meme names for these things' is great too when I try to seriously recommend the "Nyancaller" to a friend, hah.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Catgirl Handbook
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Spheres Apocrypha: Beastfolk Race Variants
by Victoria S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/12/2021 18:26:14

A delightful addition to races that either dreadfully needed some additional love (such as Lizardfolks) or just some very fun variants for the more well known races (such as Ratfolk), this little apoc does a great job adding more options and variety to these unique races while not pushing too hard on making them particularly power-creepy, keeping everything basically in line for what you'd expect of other main stream races that have a lot of options and abilities. A fantastic job as always from the author.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Spheres Apocrypha: Beastfolk Race Variants
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Spheres Bestiary: Fiends of the Cosmos
by Antoine M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/24/2021 23:14:12

A fun bestiary that expands on introducing spheres to NPCs to make both subsystems mesh together However, I feel this particular dropped the ball on including cookie-cutter meta PC options at every turn, rather than leveraging the unique strengths of evil outsiders of different varieties.

Most notable of all is the very first entry, a creature that can on a low-estimate swing for 12d6+324 twice a turn. I am not exagerating or expecting a critical hit. It simply attacks that hard due to exploiting infamous synergies from some of Paizo's most ill-regarded content.

On the other hand, the elemental chaos orb is an intrigueing and exciting enemy to face.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Spheres Bestiary: Fiends of the Cosmos
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The Diabolist's Handbook
by Antoine M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/24/2021 23:01:34

The Diabolist's Handbook contains a the typically expected gamut of fun new options, and has improved in terms of content that raises balance concerns since the last Matt Daley release. Feedback was still ignored regarding more egregious balance issues with new content and upgrades to old content. While I am excited to add this book to my collection, I advise DMs to carefully approve which options players take and the worldbuilding impact of NPCs with the options presented.

Still a great addition for any spheres-of enjoyers.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
The Diabolist's Handbook
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The Alienist's Handbook
by Antoine M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/24/2021 22:59:58

While the Alienist's Handbook contains a wide variety of fun and new content, it follows the same issues as typical handbooks penned by Matt Daley. Feedback was ignored regarding more egregious balance issues with new content and upgrades to old content. While I am excited to add this book to my collection, it does falter on how much content I have to very carefully approve compared to normal.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
The Alienist's Handbook
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Spheres Bestiary: Villains NPC Codex
by Antoine M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/14/2021 12:36:02

An excellent NPC codex giving wonderful DM tools from a wide and varied range of creatures of all CRs, going from low hitdie cultists and bandits to epic personas and villains. The variety of themes and organizations provides a stellar jumping off point for any aspiring DM, both for those wanting to use Spheres of Power and Might and for looking at how to structure factions for their own worldbuilding.

A must have.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Spheres Bestiary: Villains NPC Codex
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The Catgirl Handbook
by Goku M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/06/2021 03:19:34

I have to say this has been a super up lifting book i love their april fools books, keep them coming! i look forward to these every year!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Catgirl Handbook
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The Errant Champion
by Wil W. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/05/2021 08:24:08

Overall this is a pretty solid read if you're looking at adding additional character options to your game. It's well written and does a decent job at blending new ideas with current ones to provide both the sense of "this is it's own thing" while also being able to feel reassured that it's not coloring too far outside the lines.

To answer the every looming question every player or GM has when it comes to 3rd party supplements; How powerful is it?

As an entire package I'd say it's a perfect fit for tables that include the Advanced Player's Guide material in their pool of options. You'll find similarities with several feats and abilities that borrow from other classes, but it does so in a way that doesn't seem like it's only cherry picking the best parts from them. The "Errant" cause does lean more heavily into it's Champion Reaction than the other causes and is one of the key parts the entire concept is built around.

From a roleplay and class information standpoint I do believe there is room for additional detail. Although the primary core of the cause is to walk one's own path and be your own boss, I do believe it should still have some sort of code by which it exists to help keep some of its Champion roots and not just seem like a Fighter variant. "You have forsaken or given up such divine blessings and favors, instead seeking to harness your own determination and spirit in the face of diversity." How does this interact with Archetypes that may have strong divinity connections to Deities such as Cleric or Blessed One? How does this interact with skill feat choices such as Battle Prayer? Players and GM's for the moment may need to fill in the blanks themselves and come up with their own "code" by which the character lives by, draws power in belief from, and risks perhaps losing some of that power if their belief falters.

One suggestion for future revisions of the book would be to move the paragraph found the top of page 3 under the "New Feats'' header to a better spot where it stands out as it contains vital information that could be overlooked and give a false impression of power with some of the feats if the reader had missed it. Perhaps one of those slightly colorful sidebars you see in some rulebooks, or a more noticeable header to call attention to it.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Errant Champion
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Rogue Glory
by Greg W. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/12/2021 14:33:09

It seems to be standard behaviour to bemoan how underpowered rogues are. I'm not so sure, I find the combat rogue flanking specialist to be pretty devastating, even if it is a glass canon. The Unchained rules really help the rogue to power-up and, if you go mythic, then they are pretty awesome. Still, that does seem to limit them to one style of play.

Rogue Glory certainly gives them a power boost and lots of cool options. The author is clearly passionate about the subject and gives great energy to the matter. This book is excellent value for money and is strong addition to any collection. I would warn GMs to allow some of these options with caution. The Urban Ninja archetype is in effect the ultimate version of the rogue. Probably a bit too OP (but groovy mind you) which is why I haven't given it the full 5 stars (although value for money is a definite 5). The author probably did it all himself, and as such, has left a few little spelling mistakes in there, 'pray' instead of 'prey' and such like - it doesn't spoil it. A really enjoyable read - now if can just persuade my GM...



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Rogue Glory
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Expanded Archetypes (PF2)
by Joshua J. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/09/2021 08:51:15

Lots of new feats for Assassin and Pirate, both of which were clearly needed. For the price, it's very worth it if you plan to use either of those archetypes.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Expanded Archetypes (PF2)
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The Realmwalker's Handbook
by Antoine M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/03/2021 14:38:35

An absolute blast to read through and an absolute smorgasbord of varied content to use. A wonderful addition for any fans of teleporting, realm-traveling, space-themed abilities and fun new content.

My players were clamoring for this to get released from playtest for a while and it delivered beyond satisfactorily when it released. Would reccomend picking it up for any fan of the Spheres subsystem.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Realmwalker's Handbook
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