The cover art is beautiful and really conveys a sense of emotion and despair. Very nice. Once inside the artwork swings between good and below average. Take the picture of Storm Keep (I'm assuming thats what it is) on page 7... it reminds me of high school art class. Not as bad as the DLCS but a little dissapointing.
Did the races really need reprinting in the AoM? Seems like a waste of space to me. The Tarmak seem a little bland but I like the Half-Kender.
The Mariner base class is nice but a little limited in that you really need to have a campaign based at sea or at least be revolved around a port town/city.
The Prestige Classes are very nice and appear balanced at first glance. I especially like the Academy Sorcerer, and the Nightstalker. The three Steel Legion PrC's are nice and I can now see why the Steel Legionnaire is only 3 levels as it makes the base for these three.
The feats are typical 3.5 fare being made up mostly of skill bonues. Shame because 3.5 already has far too many feats like that.
The new spells are nice - a mixture of good flavour spells and actually useful in adventuring spells. All too often new spells that appear are in sourcebooks are overpowered but thats not the case here.
A major portion of the book is dedicated to expanding the information on Geography in the 5th age and goes into a lot more detail. Unfortnatly, the stat blocks for relevant NPC's seem to blur into the main text.
Next is an in-depth look at the gods as they stand after the War of Souls and gives more information on them than the DLCS does. It also gives information on the now mortal Paladine and Takhisis & Mina.
The monsters section is small and covers two templates - Bound Spirit and Ogre Titan. Theres also a mini-template for Advanced Dragon where a Dragon uses a Skull Totem to grow beyond the power of a Ancient Wyrm.
There are two new Dragons - Sea and Shadow. The Shadow Dragon is identical (as far as I could compare) with the one in Monsters of Faerun. The artwork for the Sea Dragon is poor but never mind.
There are then stats for Khellendros, Malystryx and Onysablet. The first two get artwork but "Sable" doesn't sadly.
I think it could have been a little bit better in layout and composition but it was certanly worth my money.
The one thing I would ask Sovereign Stone is please, please, please get some better interior artwork.
Overall, I give this book 8/10.
Originally posted by SweetMeats
There are two new Dragons - Sea and Shadow. The Shadow Dragon is identical (as far as I could compare) with the one in Monsters of Faerun. The artwork for the Sea Dragon is poor but never mind.
The sea dragon's one of my favorite pictures! As for the shadow dragon, it is the shadow dragon from Monsters of Faerun, but it's the 3.5 version (I believe in most cases this means a CR improvement of 1 for each age category and some other changes).
Cheers,
Cam
Originally posted by Cam Banks
The sea dragon's one of my favorite pictures! As for the shadow dragon, it is the shadow dragon from Monsters of Faerun, but it's the 3.5 version (I believe in most cases this means a CR improvement of 1 for each age category and some other changes).
Cheers,
Cam
I guess I may have been spoilt by other books but I prefer my artwork to look realistic. *Shrugs*
Originally posted by SweetMeats
I guess I may have been spoilt by other books but I prefer my artwork to look realistic. *Shrugs*
How more realistic could a giant aquatic half-dragon half-turtle look?
Keep in mind, also, that the current trend in all D&D product is towards a somewhat comic-book style of artwork with an emphasis on dynamic poses and action shots, and I think that whatever books have spoiled you on art can't have been all that far off this stuff.Cheers,
Cam