“ Uplifted bears are sometimes rumored to have violent temperaments, but their personalities are as varied as those of any sapient species. The supporting text for the Uplifted Bear also gives us this gem: I mean, you get to be a bear with humanoid intelligence who can wear armor and wield weapons (though, damn right, you also have claws that serve as natural weapons). The Pahtra and Vlaka have you covered on cat and dog/wolf humanoids, respectively, but the one our Discord channel was raving about (and rightfully so!) was the Uplifted Bear.
There are several “beasts of the forest” type critters, category entries for things like “predators” and “herd animals”, and several of the playables are animal humanoids. This time, whether it was intentional or not, the book feels like it has a few broad “themes”. In terms of sourcing, most of the material is original, but there are some Pathfinder holdovers that have been converted to the new system, and they also imported a few creatures from adventure paths or Society games (I noticed the akatas and garaggakal from Dead Suns, off the top of my head). Slightly fewer than last time, but still a healthy chunk of new choices. For those of you who are compulsive re-rollers, 16 of those are identified as playable races. In terms of nuts and bolts, the table of contents lists 65 entries, though sometimes an entry is a single creature other times, an entry might be multiple examples of the type, or a more general category of creature (“herd animals”, to pick an example). So they’ve basically done the same thing this time: the “mix” is a little different because there’s maybe a little less world-building to do and slightly fewer playable races (only 16 this time as opposed to 20-some last time), but overall they stuck with what worked. I thought Paizo came up with a really good formula for the first book because I thought they made a nice reference book that gave GMs everything they needed to run their campaigns AND threw in some content for the players too. That’s where I feel like we are with Starfinder’s Alien Archive 2.
“More of the same” sounds like “boring” or “uninventive”.īut what if the “same” was already really good? What if the “same” was the Alien Archive, which delivered a nice batch of monsters for GMs to play around with, but also sprinkled in playable races for your players, new tech and magic items to stock your treasure hoards, and general world-building lore? Why would you reinvent the wheel if you got it right the first time? Normally when someone says “more of the same”, it comes across as a bit of a pejorative. If you enjoyed this review make sure to check out our weekly actual play podcast where Jason and the team are playing the Starfinder Dead Sun’s adventure path as well as the occasional Starfinder Society adventure as well.
0 kommentar(er)
