Ronin Books

While entertaining, this book's core class - the 20 level Assassin is not balanced. The concept of gaining a critical "kill" attack at 2nd level and every 4 levels there after is simply too powerful - Most Gms will have to find ways to work with\around that ability to tone it down. Not only that - but there are a few critical typos - the Maximize Poison and Empower poison feats read Exactly the same - and I am sure the authors intended these to work similarly to the mage version - but gave no reason Why they should work that way - what about an Assassin allows him to make a poison any stronger than he normally would - let alone what the feats do?
Personally, I wanted more rationalizing, more depth and more useful tools. If you are a new gamer looking to play an Assassin this might be the book for you - but personally, I think you need to wait on a more balanced and complete book, or even a good chapter in another book, on Assassin's before spending your money on this. In reality out of it's like 66 pages - only 20ish of them are useful, the rest is fluff.

I don't like to give bad reviews on anything, but I feel that this one is justified and will do someone some good.

PROS:
(1) It is universal in that it can be used in any fantasy game.
(2) Comes in a box (ignore Amazon's "Hardcover"; that's misleading).

CONS:
(1) Bad, bad art...plain...generic...dull...and yucky.
(2) Way over priced for 22 cards (about 2 cards for a buck). This should not sell for more than $5 (and even less if you have a $3.99 S/H fee).

Other options: Wizards of the Coast has a free downlaod of 52 cards (go to the WIZARDScom site and type in "Deck of Many Things"...it should be the first match...scroll to the middle of the page) with solid art work. If you print them on stock paper, you'll be in good shape (even better if you put them in a plastic sleeve). The price of printing all of these is less than a $1...and you get much better art work...and you get 150% MORE product.

Even if WotC did not have a superior option, I would still strongly recommend that you not buy this box of cards.

Waited for ages to get this, and was so disappointed when I realized it was not a JCL book. Lots of his ideas, added language, no new material. I do not recommend buying this book.

I've been an enthusiastic reader of Lilly's for a few years now, and I've been excited by these new editions Ronin Publishing has brought forth. "Center of the Cyclone" is well done, but this is highly suspect. Despite several recognizable Lilly-isms, a look on the inside copyright page states that the book was "translated" by Beverly A. Potter. Further, a note in small print at an opening page's foot states that this book was "derived" from Lilly's "Simulations of God: The Science of Belief." I have read that book, and it was certainly a good candidate for being clarified and elaborated on, but I simply have no idea what to make of this supposedly "derived translation." To top it off, in one passage, there is a reference to the television show "Nip/Tuck" (albeit cited as "Nip and Tuck"), which Lilly certainly never saw - he was dead by then. There must have been some sort of copyright loophole that allowed this book to be put together as such. Without access to "Simulations of God," I have no way of knowing the degree to which this book is an effective update and synopsis or a badly put-together mishmash. Considering the awful syntax and grammatical errors I encountered on many pages, I assume the latter. Nonetheless, insofar as it is promoting Lilly's insights , it isn't entirely without merit. It simply needs to offer more disclosure to a reader who may be misled into what they're purchasing.

I had high hopes for this book....but once I actually saw it those hopes were destroyed! The pages are soooo dark (due to the terrible coloring job) I had a lot of trouble actually looking at any of the pages.

My advice to everyone is if you find this book for 25 cents...buy it...otherwise stay away.

I was excited when I heard about this book because I loved the Todd Gamble maps I found on the Wizards of the Coast website (D&D Map-a-Week archive). The maps on wizards.com have sparked a number of adventure ideas and were all very high quality.

This book, however was a HUGE disappointment. Basically it is just a book of some uninteresting floor plans, dull tunnel mazes, overland maps with nothing but a river with a bridge or some such. Nothing at all sparked my interest. 62 pages of Blah.

To make matters worse, there are great big text blocks on every map that give the title of the map and the map scale, but they obscure part of the map. Also, many of the maps are printed so dark that it is very hard to even see what is drawn on them, and they would never photocopy.

I sent this book back. It was a total waste. I cant beleive that such a great cartographer would put out something this poor. I highly recommend you check out his stuff on wizards.com, but dont waste your money on this book.

This book is complete fluff pretending to be substance. The cute little cartoons and boxes make this book impossible to focus on. How is anyone supposed to take meaning from it if he or she can't finish a sentence without some graphic causing a distraction? I've been reading paragraphs to my friends, and they can't stop laughing at how people may think of this as "advice"!