High Seas Gadgeteering: Maritime Accessories for the Gadgeteer Base Class
High Seas Gadgeteering: Maritime Accessories for the Gadgeteer Base Class
This expansion for Interjection Games’ Gadgeteer base-class clocks in at 11 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 9 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we?
When I reviewed the gadgeteer back in the day, I really liked it, though it was pretty complex and needed some additional tools – well, tools are here, ladies and gentlemen!
The first new accessory herein would the emergency skiff – and it does pretty much what you’d expect -it provides an emergency vessel akin to a better codified folding boat and the 5 add-on customizations even allow you to add even weaponry to your vessel! Pretty cool!
The spermaceti launcher accessory should put a smile on the faces on everyone who enjoyed the steampunk-epic and spiritual heir to the Thief-series, Dishonored – this one allows you to use a whale oil based (thus slickness-creating) flamethrower-style spray – including 6 add-ons for precision nozzles, candle-light functions, full-blown flamethrower capacity, increased uses etc. – this breathes awesomeness, but pales before the next accessory.
The gizmocast fishing pole is a thing of utter beauty if you are even remotely into complex abilities and proper codification of rules-languages. Everyone who ever tried to get harpoons to work properly can imagine how difficult the wording for this beast must have been – ad yes, from range to where the “bait” lands has been clarified in a wholly compelling and easy to grasp way. Speaking of bait – the rod can use so-called gizmobobbers: From caltrops to alchemist’s fire to antimagic fields, 9imaginative customizations that include electro-shocks, copycat gizmobobbers that duplicate the last one used to invisibility-negating, slippery paint, this accessory is a thing of profound beauty and glorious tactical options.
No, that wasn’t all. It becomes (arguably) even better – whereas the former accessory was downright brilliant on the “never done before” scope, the final accessory and its 11 add-ons blow the lid off the awesome bucket. The final accessory is the Parrot Producer. In its basic function, it can create corpulent parrots from thin air, serving as trail rations. Alternatively, the gadget can create dead parrots (which do not require components when animated as undead parrots!) -or speaking parrots with a pirate accent, improved combat prowess and actual ranks in Profession (sailor)! What about creating a mutant parrot stuck in the box with a long neck that affixes itself to your body, acting as a 10-ft.-reach autonomous bite weapon? What about scaling exploding parrots? Exploding parrots that leave trails of smoke (or entangling tar) behind? Yeah, this is black humor at its finest! (And yes, in my last campaign, our pirate’s smartass, intelligent parrot animal companion was regularly forced to act as a mini-bomber, trap-scout etc. – at gun point. So yeah, if you have some humor, you’ll be laughing while reading this and then start to contemplate the glorious options this accessory provides.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to Interjection Games’ two-column b/w-standard and the pdf sports some nice stock-art and photography to supplement its rules. The pdf has no bookmarks, which, while not recommended at this length, would have been nice.
I’ll make that short – even among all the glorious expansions Bradley Crouch has delivered for his base-classes, this one stands out. It *breathes* inspiration. Nothing is half-assed or sloppy herein and more importantly – this is not numerical escalation – it is simply evocative and awesome. And hilariously funny to boot, at least if you have my humor. This pdf allows you to creates zombie parrots! Exploding parrots! Kill foes with fishing poles! Even if you do not own the gadgeteer class, this supplement makes for an inspiring read for magic item and rules design. It is innovative, complex and inexpensive to boot – this is a true steal, one suffused with cool ideas. Even if you consider the content not funny, taking a look at the rules should bring a smile to your face if you appreciate good crunch. If I didn’t have the gadgeteer-class already, I’d immediately start redesigning the content herein as items. It’s that good. A prime example of what a class expansion can do and what it should be, this is an easy final rating of 5 stars + seal of approval.
You can get this awesome, inspired expansion here on OBS and here on d20pfsrd.com’s shop!
Endzeitgeist out.
