Ronin Books

Better than the Psionics Handbook or its revision, the Expanded Psionics Handbook, both published by Wizards of the Coast. Green Ronin looks at psychic phenomena as something beyond the bulky spell rules of the d20 system, and relates them instead to the stronger skills & feats rules--similar to the treatment of the Force in Wizards' original and revised Star Wars RPGs. Treating phenomena as skills allows psychic powers to operate alongside magic without competing for cinematic effect--and makes them easily convertable into any modern/horror or sci-fi setting. These are incredible rules for any gamer serious about psychic/psionic abilities.

One of the better company's to put out d20 stuff has always been Green Ronin Press. The Shaman's Handbook is one of the best alternate core class books on the market.

Those of us who have always been big psionics fans were pretty disappointed in the Psionics Handbook for v3.0. The new revised v3.5 is supposed to be better, but my confidence is low. Especially since picking up the Psychic's Handbook. Wow. Very nicely done. Psionics that aren't just a bad ripoff of magic. Very clean and relatively simple. Psionics end up being not quite as 'fireball' powerful as spellcasters but their versatility is increased and powers are much more subtle.

In brief: PC's buy Psychic Talent feats based on general catagories (Clairsentientce, Psychokinesis, Psychometabolism, Psychoportation, Telepathy, etc). These feats give the player access to certain skills. A couple of skills may be used untrained (ie: Psychic Sense) but mostly you have to put Ranks into them.

For example: The Psychokinesis Feat allows you to put ranks into the Photo-kinesis (Int) Skill (among many others). With it you can do many different things. 'With a succesful check, you can warp light around yourself, making your outline blurred and indistinct or even become invisible. Attacking does not negate the effects of this skill. You can create holograms'...etc, etc. Each ability requires you to make a skill check that has a certain DC. Invisibility in this case requires a DC 25 roll. Illumating an area like a torch is DC 5 (+5' per additional 10' radius).

Each use of a skill requires a certain amount of 'Strain', which is simply non-lethal damage you take when you use the skill. In the example above, the Strain cost is equal to the DC/5. Light is 1 Strain, Blur (20% miss chance) is DC 15 and costs 3 strain. Invisibility costs 5 Strain.

All the skills are based on either Int, Wis or Cha. No more Constitution or Dex based psionic abilities.

Of course there are other Feats that allow you to improve the things your skills can do. Psychic Healing (Wis), a Psychometabolism skill, allows you to heal HP or Ability damage. With the Cure Disease Feat you can now use your skill for that as well. Flight, which is a strenuous application of the Telekinesis (Int) skill can be improved seriously by taking the Flight Feat. The Apport Arrows Feat allows you to use your Apport skill to 'Deflect Arrows' by teleporting them away (works like the Deflect Arrows Feat).

And finally the Psychic Combat also looks much more 'psychic' than 'fireball'. I need to read more on that section.

Once again this company puts out a really well done book that I really want to use in my campaign. Can't ask for much more than that.

Rich

Sure its phychic and not psionic but there is little difference in the powers presented from 3.0 to this book. Compared to the psionic 3.0 this is hands down better. (Though I have not seen the 3.5 version yet) Note to all you wizard players out there, phychics arent the same. The power level is less by far but the system is cleanly intergrated into almost any campaign. Even though it reads like it is intended for fantasy, I really see this supplement having a staring role in a modern or sci-fi campaign. As GM in those genre's if you find them to be more powerful than you would like just restrict the number or percentage of skill points that can be spent on powers. Thats right the powers are skill based, but you need a feat(s) to gain access to them.
Very well done.

Having enjoyed their Master Class books, I decided to give one of the Races of Renown books a try.

Now, my understanding is that Green Ronin is prohibited from using any race-related material already published by Wizards of the Coast, so I avoided the books on orcs, whom I already know quite well, and drow, who I scarcely ever use, and went for what promised to be the most original book, this one.

This book really is original, providing some unique half-breed races, along with balanced rules for creating you own halfbreeds, either as races or templates. A few of the half-breeds use rules that make them a little to easy to abuse, particularly the Wyrd, an ogre mage/elf cross, but for the most part they're fair and balanced and, most importantly, playable.

There's only one real flaw with this book, and that's a definite trend towards a lot of nature-focused half-breeds, combining various fey creatures with various woods-friendly humanoids. The results are always interesting (I have a player who now wants to play a woodwose), but perhaps a trifle repetitive. Since I generally run a very nature-focused game, I don't have a problem with it and the book doesn't lose any stars.

The feats and items sections are interesting as well, providing rules for making new race-specific items along with a few new examples, and feats that take advantage of the mixed heritage of the book's races.

The prestige classes are adequate but, in my opinion, underpowered. Since they only take up a scant eight or nine pages, again, the book loses no marks with me for this. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go look at the Green Ronin web-site and see if any other books catch my eye.

I absolutly loved this book. I've always loved "half-breeds", so when I saw this book I quickly bought it. I wasn't dissapointed. The art was great (with the exception of Makbin), the writing was wonderful and it also offered quite a bit of "crunchy" parts as well.

Pros:
The layout was wonderful and the writing was well-written and interesting. Though not as entertaining as a novel, I enjoyed reading this book- it was interesting and well written. The art is also great, if slightly comic-booky in style. The races written up are interesting, albeit strange and exotic- but that's the way I like them. The info on half-breeds in society is helpful. All in all it's a great book, but...

Cons:
As the previous reviewer stated, quite alot of the races are crosses between nature friendly humanoids and nature "monsters". There's also quite alot of elf half-breeds. The races listed are also extremely exotic and strange- so if you don't like bizaare stuff then this book isn't for you. I was expecting stuff like orcs/dwarves and that sort of thing, not things like halfling/blink dogs, elf/naga or elf/giant eagles. Still, I was fine with that-I loved it actually, but it wasn't what I was expecting. Bastards and Bloodlines still has some or the more "normalish" half-breeds, too, though.

This my own personal pet-peeve, but it seemed to me like alot of the half-breeds parents got together, had a baby, and then seperated and abandoned the child to one of the parent races. One of the reasons that I love half-breeds is that the idea that two unlike races can fall in love and marry and have a half-breed child is interesting and has great story and roleplaying oppurotunity. A treant that fell in love with an elven druid and worked hard to win her heart, overcome elven resistence and established an area to ensure peace for their children and their lives is much more interesting then "a treant and an elf have a baby and then abandon each other and their child".

Still, this book is great, and has very little flaws.

Art: 9- the art in this book was great, if slightly comic-bookish. I dislike Makbin (one of the artists) but otherwise the art was good.
Writing: 10- it was extremely well-written, with very minor flaws.
Playability: 9- if you ever need a resource for half-breeds, this is the book for you. One of my players begged for me to "magically change" his half-elf into a Decataur, they loved it. I've also dropped in a couple Half-breed NPC's in the campaign, and they made the game much more interesting and fun.

All in all, a great book, and if your even remotely interested in half-breeds, this is your book- buy it now!

This is a must have for die hard gamers who love vampires. It is both extremely useful, and very interesting to read. It gives many ways to spruce up those boring vampire encounters that you may have had. All in all, a great purchase at a fairly low price.

Green Ronin has a winner with this one. It does everything it promises and then some. Whether you want a playable vampire racial template, new feats to customize vampires or simply want advice on how to incorporate or portray a vampire in your campaign this book is for you. Fang and Fury provides both players and DMs with all the tools they need to spice up the vampires in their games. From Daywalkers(think Blade) to Vampire Dragons, from Vampire Mages to cannibalistic Revelers this book has it all.

The only real problem I have with this book is the lack of an index, though the reason for the lack of an index is a good one. They have so much information in this book you'll find the insides of the covers packed with it. All in all one of the better books out there for the D20 system.

There are a few surprises in this book for X-men fans. The plot is well written without saturating the story with too many characters (for the sake of having them). Just when the story gets really interesting, the book ends. I'm just disappointed there is isn't a volume two.

X-men Ronin is the mangaverse spin-off of the x-men. We start off after the whole Magneto fiasco in the first Mangaverse book. This story is mainly about the gathering of the mutants, but the high point is the fight of the X-men against The White Queen. This book is not as good as the Spider-man Mangaverse, but still worth getting.

I was pretty impressed with this book. I have a large number of gaming modules and this one stands out in my opinion by being well written and well organized. It has possibly the best Index and Table of Contents I have seen in awhile. That might seen an odd observation, but you have looked more then one rule book, you know how rare and yet how useful those are.

Sidewinder: Recoiled builds on to the Open Game License (OGL) D20 system rules a well thought out approach to bringing Western movie genre into the RPG world. There have been other approaches, but this one sticks to a non-magical west. Dog House Rules has provided a lot of material in the book and in supplements to run a more historical western game. But, they excel at giving you the tools and options to give your campaign the Hollywood/spaghetti/pulp feel.

Whether you want the good ol' westerns like Shane, Stage Coach, The War Wagon, or True Grit ~ or if you want the grittier more mythic feel of Sergio Leone ~ or even David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah ~ the tools are here.

There are lots of historical information and even more on their website, [...] - they also have a range of additional material available through download PDF's including Fort Griffin. A resource for a frontier town with maps, buildings, and Non Player Characters.

A great resource for anyone wanting to run a Western Themed campaign.

While it still relies the d20 moderns corebook for a few things, the game comes into its own onces your base hero (fast,tough, smart, whatever) can qualifiy for the advanced classes given. I would rather they had made the product stand alone, but as the d20 core book is only needed for the first 3 character levels and some basic rules this isn't a bad system. They also provide periodic updates and modules from their website.

If you are considering running a western's campaign and already have the d20 moderns book, I recommmend this game most highly.

Space Usagi ROCKS! If you like Usagi Yojimbo, get this book! This book is good, But not as good as Usagi Yojimbo:Daisho because this book takes place in the future.

Even if you're not a fan of Stan Sakai's Usagi Yoyimbo, you can't go wrong with this excellent collection of his "Space Usagi" issues. Stan hasn't won the Eisner award for nothing, and once again he displays his talent for story and characters. If you are already familiar with his work, you will enjoy it even more. In today's comic book (or graphic novel, if you really insist) market, where there are so many new issues with nothing beyond some occasional good color illustrations, it's very refreshing to see how entertaining a story illustrated in black-and-white can still be when proper respect is given to the characters and the audience. Enjoy!

Lots of material in here. Some of the new subraces and prestige classes seem to be a tad overpowered at times but this is my only gripe. Some very nice fresh material in here for any elf fan. Some neat new races, classes, spells, equipment etc. This was one of my first green ronin books and made me a big fan of their work in general.

If you are at all interested in the subject matter... playing or DMing elves buy this book. it is a great read with lots of creative gems I am dieing to try out in my next game.

This book was very helpful. It has detailed pic's and lots of cold hard facts. If your are a unexperianced gardener this book is for you. Well, that what my friend Gostough told ME.(!)

I bought this book from Ronin Publishing when it first came out, and was a bit miffed to pay the list price of $59.95. Now that it is going for as much as $500 per copy, I clearly don't feel so bad.

More to the point, this book is indespensible for researchers, drug counselors, drug addicts, DEA personnel, and anyone interested in how the DEA classifies Schedule I-V drugs.

Even more impressive are the appendices which range from the Analogue Enforcement Act to Federal Sentencing Guidlines. Imagine bringing this book into court with you and having a reduced sentence or no sentence because of Sasha's research. Talk about pissing off your local ignorant DA!

Highly, highly recommended. If you've been looking for this kind of information, try and find an Amazon 2nd teir vendor who'll let it go for around $150. Money well spent.

This book has nothing to do with your traditionnal manga book. No big boobs, no easy girls with short skirts. In the different stories you will read, your "convoitise", your desire, and your phantasm will be revealed and you will enjoy this book like no others.