Review: Rite Publishing – Heroes of the Jade Oath (Lands of the Jade Oath)

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Heroes of the Jade Oath
Heroes of the Jade Oath is an Asian epic fantasy setting for Pathfinder, written by Frank Carr and published by Rite Publishing.
By Venus De Coy
RP-Heroes-of-the-Jade-Oath-PF

Learn more about Heroes of the Jade Oath here
Purchase Heroes of the Jade Oath here
Find other Lands of the Jade Oath products here

Are you considering an Eastern Campaign? Well Heroes of the Jade Oath, is a supplement that allows players to expand on Eastern-style Pathfinder options already provided through products like Jade Regent, and Ultimate Combat.

CONTENT

This 176 Page setting has quite a lot to it!  Heroes of the Jade Oath includes:

  • Detailed information on the new setting Lands of the Jade Oath
  • New marvelous player races like Bakemono, Mandragoran, Qahngol, Shenxue, and Yueren elves and 11 other variants
  • Evocative new character classes and archetypes like Demon Hunter, Enlightened Scholar, Kensai, Kusa, 7 different Monks, 6 new totems for barbarians, 4 new witch archetypes types, and two new paladin archetypes.
  • The new Fung Shui skill and massive number of far eastern style feats including a new feat type Chakra.
  • Optional Rules for Cinematic Combat and Zodiac Signs as campaign traits,
  • A new Spellcasting option for Casters.
  • A Huge selection of weapons, armor, and alchemical items from the Far East

It is currently available for PDF for $14.99 on DriveThruRPG, and Paizo.com.. It is also available for Print purchase at the same locations on May 22nd.

OVERALL

Heroes of the Jade Oath, is a different look into the lifestyles of the Eastern lands. It is a nice change of pace from a lot of the current themes going on in the RPG community. It’s a good buy for those who are looking for something new to add to their Eastern Campaigns.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 9 out of 10
Publication Layout: The layout of this adventure is clean and colorful. There is very little space wasted and the artwork is definitely of the best quality. This product is definitely built for print, and it shows!

Ease of Mobility: What kills me about this product, is that it is 80MB in size. Paizo’s core book PDF’s are not even this size. As a result, it makes transferring and reading this on a mobile device a total lag. Going forward I would like to see publishers consider a “Mobile friendly” PDF along with the high resolution. I see quite a lot of publishers do this, so it is hard for me to believe that it’s not possible.

Also, because there is so much in this book, it would have been nice to have a chapter by chapter downloadable content as well. It would have been helpful for those who like to reference certain sections when they are in game, or to allow the GM the opportunity to reference the item.

Mechanics: 10 out of 10
Mechanically, the product is fairly sound. I don’t see anything that makes me go: “Whoa buddy” on the imbalance table. But there are some nice new additions that do compliment the rules already in place for Pathfinder. So I have no major complaints.

Value Add: 10 out of 10
I spoke  earlier about there being quite a lot of quality value in this expansion, and there is. They expanded on a lot of the mythos that is the Eastern culture and lifestyle. When this is tied into the other products, like Kaidan, The Way of the Samurai, and even other products like Jade Regent, they can all be interwoven, and that’s not an easy thing to do. Products that allow versatility between homebrews and published adventures is a quite hard, and so I tip my hat to the team in that respect.

Overall: 10 out of 10
Overall, this product is quite well done! It has compatibility with other products, as well as stand alone as a great supplement product. Although I personally do not have any plans on running an eastern based campaign any time soon, it’s good to know that there are amazing products that keep the games alive, and provide new options to gamers no matter what their needs are.

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