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jueves, 4 de julio de 2013

Review of Open Gaming Monthly #4

In today's post I offer you the review of the fourth issue of the magazine Open Gaming Monthly thanks to John Reyst and D20PFSRD kindness and available through its online shop.

 

This fourth issue it's devoted to summer and offers contents that can be easily related to this year's season, so this articles (almost all related to Pathfinder) are based in themes related with fire and water, although other subjects are treated, so you can find many articles related with plants.

Contents review

Inside Featured Content you will find the following contents:

The Summer Temple is a short adventure easily inserted in any campaign and designed for 4 characters of levels 1 to 3 of good alignment (it's suggested that some of them to be a clerics or paladins).

Midgard Icons: Emperor of the Ghouls is the first in a series of articles showing influential figures of the Midgard campaign setting by Kobold Press in the descriptive format of the game 13th Age by Pelgrane Press.

 

What’s Happening in Your Kingdom? shows an introduction to supplement Ultimate Rulership by Legendary Games detailing a set of rules related with player character's kingdoms management (this article gives tables needed to decide monthly events that can take place and their nature).

Explore the Basics of Pact Magic is an article for making magic pacts with dragon spirits already forgotten, and uses green dragon Aza’zati as an example.

 

Inside articles for players we will find the following ones:

The Optimal Path: Treesinger Druid objective is to show a variant for Druid character class for elves and half-elves that can use plants and trees as companions.

Tyler Beck (article's author and editor of the website PathinderCommunity) also suggests other related resources located in these links:

Treantmonk’s Guide to Druids (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
Peterrco’s guide to Druids
Guide to Pathinder Races

The Rain Dancer offers another archetype belonging to the Druid class, but this time with echoes of indigenous North American shamans, also including a series of new spells and abilities related with dancing.

 

Summer Spells can be considered a second part of the Winter Wonderland article inside the first issue of the magazine, but this time goes to the opposite end of the ladder with a list of enchantments related to summer season, including those related to heat and its effects (like burns or dehydration) but also others that could be used in a beach party, wouldn't you like to see how your magic sand castle is built while creating some refreshments?

Magic Mistletoe shows many varieties of mistletoe obtainable through magic and alchemy and its effects on characters.

Inside articles for Game Masters we will find the following ones:

Crystal Cave describes a set of caves for any adventure regardless of the system the referee wishes to use.

Creature Feature offers a set of four creatures related to Fey and the primeval world, hidden remains of ancient eras before man appearance.

Your Whispering Homunculus: 100 Obscure Professionals consists in a list with descriptions of 100 characters with really strange jobs, originally published in Kobold Quaterly magazine that can be used to fill encounters or if a NPC is needed.

 

Inside columns we will find the following articles:

Behind the Spells: Continual Flame can be considered, as a matter of speaking, a historic investigation work because is devoted to analyze the spells (Continual Flame in this case) since first appearing in game manuals as really created by magicians.

The Good, The Bad, The Henchmen offers four characters of faerie nature (the elf ranger Flaurelie Sharridisha, her horse Thaum, the drow diviner Euridice and the faerie dragon Polanitus Toiriel) with complete game stats and a common past.

Other interesting articles inside the magazine

 

Besides the already described articles we could find the following ones:

Feyborn Expanded offering expanded information for creating characters with ancestors related to faerie races to complement data appeared in Racial Ecologies: Guide to Feyborn by Fat Goblin Games.

Guide to Grippli (Guia dels Grippli) shows a new species of humanoid frogs inhabiting swamps and forests, with their origin in manipulations put into practice by the Noa’roath Empire, a reptilian civilization of south jungles.

Regarding other interesting news and resources that can be useful I advise to review Dungeon Painter Online by Pyromancers, a map editor allowing working without installing software in the computer, and the Dungeon World SRD.

Final thoughts

This fourth issue of Open Gaming Monthly continues to have interesting contents adaptable to other games or as a basis for our own developments (surely the spell of the magic sandcastle in Summer Spells can be used in a game session with kids), although I also have to remark that personally I'm not convinced by articles like Continual Flame, instead of it I would preferred that an article like those already commented or another adventure to be published.

This entry it's also available in the following languages:
Castellano Català

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