Review: The Lunar Scrolls
The Lunar Scrolls a third-party supplement intended to provide you with a moon-themed package to both sides of the screen, written by Silent 7Seven. It runs 34 pages and a little over seven bucks. Admittingly I'd never heard of the company until a few days ago, but in a nutshell Silent 7Seven touts themselves as a company that tries to push the envelope as it were outside of the established boundaries on 4th Edition products.
With that out of the way, its time to check out the product to see if they deliver. The cover immediately put me off a bit. I think its a pretty poor piece, suited more for a novice Deviant Art(ist) than an actual product rendition. Likewise, the interior art where it exists is pretty low quality. That being said, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover (even though I often do), so I skipped past it and started browsing the pdf for delicious content.
This is a comparatively small supplement with a lot of big ambitions that will appeal to both players and DMs, and I applaud Silent 7Seven for their efforts. I havent bothered to check and see if the elements included are balanced against everything else: in general if something doesnt interest me I'm not going to use it, and the same can be said for my players. If they like it and it ends up being too much, its a fairly easy matter of pushing things back a notch.
Anyway.
For the players, you get four "paragon classes" that apply to the four class roles (defender, leader, striker, and controller), feats, equipment, and lunar rituals. For the DM, you get more monsters.
The paragon classes function like multiclassing, in which you burn up to three feats to gain new powers and abilities that replace existing powers in your arsenal. Personally, I dont think that its necessary to use the term "paragon" to refer to powers and abilities that can only be gained through feats: if anything people might become confused by the double-use of paragon.
The paragon classes run the gamut of okay to cool. The crescent striker conjures up immaterial blades that you can throw and daze creatures if you take a dive to your damage output, and as you progress through the feat tree can eventually do a totally badass leap attack that hits a Close burst 2, which reminds me of my barbarian days in Diablo 2.
Each paragon class also has a related paragon path obviously requires feats from the former and does its best to improve the powers you got from all those feats you spent. Sticking with the crescent striker, at level 11 you can burn an action point to activate the daze effect from your blades without suffering a penalty to damage, and enemies that damage your illusory duplicates take Wis modifier damage.
Since I almost exclusively play leaders (a combination of choice and paranoia), I also checked out the moonleader. The entry feat doesnt do much: you can use Lunar rituals and once per encounter can also grant an ally a +1 bonus to AC that you heal. The bonus is specified as a "moonshield" bonus, which rubs me the wrong way since it would be better/more consistently pegged as a power or untyped bonus. Adding new types just seems a bit excessive and uncessary, especially when they are so specific.
That, and the second feat grants you the ability to swap out two powers (level 3 or higher attack, and a level 6 or higher utility), flying in the face of all Multiclass feats that we've ever seen.
Is this something I would actually take? If I actually had a change to try out a shifter shaman, it would certainly be on the list. Its thematic, new, and adds a crapload of stuff to make a protecting spirit shaman even more durable. Of course, I tend to take things for thematic purposes in the stead of min/maxing or power gaming, so your mileage might vary.
The concepts, story, and much of the content are actually pretty good. I was very pleased with the opening bit about the lunar power source and it how it might relate to existing power sources: good stuff to get the gears turning.
My primary complaints concern the wording of some of the powers, feats and magic items, as well as the creation of new types of bonuses and terms when frankly they werent necessary at all. Understand that this isnt a mechanical issue, but more about product consistency with stuff Wizards pushes out.
On the whole, its a very decently written supplement and about what I would expect when you tread into unfamiliar territory. Good on its own, but I think it will appeal best to people who really dig the primal power source (like myself) and perhaps star-pact warlocks, and with a small amount of work/houseruling you can polish the content here to really make it shine.
With that out of the way, its time to check out the product to see if they deliver. The cover immediately put me off a bit. I think its a pretty poor piece, suited more for a novice Deviant Art(ist) than an actual product rendition. Likewise, the interior art where it exists is pretty low quality. That being said, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover (even though I often do), so I skipped past it and started browsing the pdf for delicious content.
This is a comparatively small supplement with a lot of big ambitions that will appeal to both players and DMs, and I applaud Silent 7Seven for their efforts. I havent bothered to check and see if the elements included are balanced against everything else: in general if something doesnt interest me I'm not going to use it, and the same can be said for my players. If they like it and it ends up being too much, its a fairly easy matter of pushing things back a notch.
Anyway.
For the players, you get four "paragon classes" that apply to the four class roles (defender, leader, striker, and controller), feats, equipment, and lunar rituals. For the DM, you get more monsters.
The paragon classes function like multiclassing, in which you burn up to three feats to gain new powers and abilities that replace existing powers in your arsenal. Personally, I dont think that its necessary to use the term "paragon" to refer to powers and abilities that can only be gained through feats: if anything people might become confused by the double-use of paragon.
The paragon classes run the gamut of okay to cool. The crescent striker conjures up immaterial blades that you can throw and daze creatures if you take a dive to your damage output, and as you progress through the feat tree can eventually do a totally badass leap attack that hits a Close burst 2, which reminds me of my barbarian days in Diablo 2.
Each paragon class also has a related paragon path obviously requires feats from the former and does its best to improve the powers you got from all those feats you spent. Sticking with the crescent striker, at level 11 you can burn an action point to activate the daze effect from your blades without suffering a penalty to damage, and enemies that damage your illusory duplicates take Wis modifier damage.
Since I almost exclusively play leaders (a combination of choice and paranoia), I also checked out the moonleader. The entry feat doesnt do much: you can use Lunar rituals and once per encounter can also grant an ally a +1 bonus to AC that you heal. The bonus is specified as a "moonshield" bonus, which rubs me the wrong way since it would be better/more consistently pegged as a power or untyped bonus. Adding new types just seems a bit excessive and uncessary, especially when they are so specific.
That, and the second feat grants you the ability to swap out two powers (level 3 or higher attack, and a level 6 or higher utility), flying in the face of all Multiclass feats that we've ever seen.
Is this something I would actually take? If I actually had a change to try out a shifter shaman, it would certainly be on the list. Its thematic, new, and adds a crapload of stuff to make a protecting spirit shaman even more durable. Of course, I tend to take things for thematic purposes in the stead of min/maxing or power gaming, so your mileage might vary.
The concepts, story, and much of the content are actually pretty good. I was very pleased with the opening bit about the lunar power source and it how it might relate to existing power sources: good stuff to get the gears turning.
My primary complaints concern the wording of some of the powers, feats and magic items, as well as the creation of new types of bonuses and terms when frankly they werent necessary at all. Understand that this isnt a mechanical issue, but more about product consistency with stuff Wizards pushes out.
On the whole, its a very decently written supplement and about what I would expect when you tread into unfamiliar territory. Good on its own, but I think it will appeal best to people who really dig the primal power source (like myself) and perhaps star-pact warlocks, and with a small amount of work/houseruling you can polish the content here to really make it shine.
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