Tome of Trade
Moderator: Moderators
All right, all right.
Fine.
I guess I can do the review now.
Martini Powers activate!
Tome of Trade
So, I got the PDF. There was apparently a physical option added later, but I didn't want that.
Overall, the fulfillment part of it was handled well. The PDF came in a reasonable time, and I appreciated that the guy sent out a text-only version when there were apparently art delays.
I also really like the idea of people using kickstarter to get paid to actually codify rulesets, and I think $3 is an entirely reasonable price-point for that. More people doing that means a broader, more vibrant market, and eventually better products because of it.
Unfortunately, that's most of the good things I can find to say. There's nothing offensive, it's just all amateurish. Bottom line up front, I don't regret funding this, but it's not great. It's like tipping a not-very-good street performer: I may not approve of the specific product, but I approve of busking in general, and hope this one will improve with practice.
The Tome of Trade is not especially long (64 pages including covers), but it's long enough to cover its points. There are nine chapters, covering the usual splatbook assortment, and a cursory introduction. Special bonus points for releasing everything under the OGL and simply asking that "you kindly do not abuse this, and actually pay for the book." Also for trying (and failing, as anyone must) to explain both trade as a concept and specialization of labor in a single paragraph. Lets also talk about the art up front: we won't talk about the art. It's MSPaint-style sketches, and it would have been better to just leave it out. I genuinely appreciate the effort, but it ain't working.
Chapter One: Prestige Classes
There are four of them.
- Merchant: is five levels long, and you can enter it at 3rd level (two skills at rank 5). They have a neat, metagame-y ability to set aside money while in town, and declare what they bought with it later. It's restricted to non-magical though, so you mostly don't care. Wait, no: fourth level lets you pull magical items too; they just cost double. Decent for an NPC. I could definitely see this as a decent travelling peddler.
- Con Man: is three levels long, also accessible at 3rd level, and is not good. They get skills like a rogue (no UMD though), full BAB(?) and a pick from a menu of 5 abilities each level. Most of their abilities are social combat based, but since there's no social combat minigame, they just end up sad.
- Herald: completely useless outside of the new shopkeeping minigame, and even there this is always an NPC choice at best. Realistically, you'll just hire a bard, because a bard is more useful. Three levels long, and also, oddly, a full BAB class.
Best for last though: Crafstman. Ten levels long, decently fleshed out, and has his own skill-based crafting subsystem. Also, he gives some noticeable bonuses and effects which are behave like magic items, but are completely orthogonal to magic. DR2/- for 600gp (for example)? Yeah, okay, I can dig it. There are some weird parts though, like this: "Perfectly made: Weapon/Bow or Armor/Shield. The item is treated as having a +2 enhancement bonus, stacking with any other enhancement bonus the item may have." If I squint, I can read that as making all that item's enhancements stack, which is crazytown.
Anyway, you wouldn't be a craftsman, but I can imagine carrying one around as a cohort, or a cohort's cohort. You can enter at level 4, so it comes online in exactly the right time for you to hit level 8, your cohort to hit level 6, and pick up minor bonuses on a dozen widgets.
Chapter Two: Feats
These run the gamut from weak to gamebreaking. There are 11 total, and 4 of them are "Market feats." There's a genuinely amusing joke here, which I'll go ahead and quote:
It's all over the place, really. There's also a feat that lets you use Craft checks to power magic item creation, which could be (mis)read in a way which makes it reasonable.
Next time: I drink some more and delve into Chapter Three: Spells.
Fine.
I guess I can do the review now.
Martini Powers activate!
Tome of Trade
So, I got the PDF. There was apparently a physical option added later, but I didn't want that.
Overall, the fulfillment part of it was handled well. The PDF came in a reasonable time, and I appreciated that the guy sent out a text-only version when there were apparently art delays.
I also really like the idea of people using kickstarter to get paid to actually codify rulesets, and I think $3 is an entirely reasonable price-point for that. More people doing that means a broader, more vibrant market, and eventually better products because of it.
Unfortunately, that's most of the good things I can find to say. There's nothing offensive, it's just all amateurish. Bottom line up front, I don't regret funding this, but it's not great. It's like tipping a not-very-good street performer: I may not approve of the specific product, but I approve of busking in general, and hope this one will improve with practice.
The Tome of Trade is not especially long (64 pages including covers), but it's long enough to cover its points. There are nine chapters, covering the usual splatbook assortment, and a cursory introduction. Special bonus points for releasing everything under the OGL and simply asking that "you kindly do not abuse this, and actually pay for the book." Also for trying (and failing, as anyone must) to explain both trade as a concept and specialization of labor in a single paragraph. Lets also talk about the art up front: we won't talk about the art. It's MSPaint-style sketches, and it would have been better to just leave it out. I genuinely appreciate the effort, but it ain't working.
Chapter One: Prestige Classes
There are four of them.
- Merchant: is five levels long, and you can enter it at 3rd level (two skills at rank 5). They have a neat, metagame-y ability to set aside money while in town, and declare what they bought with it later. It's restricted to non-magical though, so you mostly don't care. Wait, no: fourth level lets you pull magical items too; they just cost double. Decent for an NPC. I could definitely see this as a decent travelling peddler.
- Con Man: is three levels long, also accessible at 3rd level, and is not good. They get skills like a rogue (no UMD though), full BAB(?) and a pick from a menu of 5 abilities each level. Most of their abilities are social combat based, but since there's no social combat minigame, they just end up sad.
- Herald: completely useless outside of the new shopkeeping minigame, and even there this is always an NPC choice at best. Realistically, you'll just hire a bard, because a bard is more useful. Three levels long, and also, oddly, a full BAB class.
Best for last though: Crafstman. Ten levels long, decently fleshed out, and has his own skill-based crafting subsystem. Also, he gives some noticeable bonuses and effects which are behave like magic items, but are completely orthogonal to magic. DR2/- for 600gp (for example)? Yeah, okay, I can dig it. There are some weird parts though, like this: "Perfectly made: Weapon/Bow or Armor/Shield. The item is treated as having a +2 enhancement bonus, stacking with any other enhancement bonus the item may have." If I squint, I can read that as making all that item's enhancements stack, which is crazytown.
Anyway, you wouldn't be a craftsman, but I can imagine carrying one around as a cohort, or a cohort's cohort. You can enter at level 4, so it comes online in exactly the right time for you to hit level 8, your cohort to hit level 6, and pick up minor bonuses on a dozen widgets.
Chapter Two: Feats
These run the gamut from weak to gamebreaking. There are 11 total, and 4 of them are "Market feats." There's a genuinely amusing joke here, which I'll go ahead and quote:
Get it? Marketing seminars? Also, it's completely worthwhile, because one of the market feats lets you sell at 80% instead of 50%. For anyone who just said "Holy Shit! Everburning Torches!" I'm way ahead of you. For comparison though, the inheritance feat gives you 200 gp/level. As in, gain 200 g/level immediately, and every time you ding hereafter.Market Feats have a special property known as Training. For 1500 gold pieces, you can take a 1 week course, which teaches you the Market feat of your choice. The course for taking a Market feat in this way doubles in price and length each time you use it (so the second is 2 weeks and 3000 gp, the third is 4 weeks and 6000 gp, and so on).
It's all over the place, really. There's also a feat that lets you use Craft checks to power magic item creation, which could be (mis)read in a way which makes it reasonable.
Next time: I drink some more and delve into Chapter Three: Spells.