Artifacts I: Ducks of Doom

This is a review of the 26-page PDF, Artifacts I: Ducks of Doom, which is part of The Le Games Pocket GM Series. Written by the titanic trio of Brad McDevitt, Nathan Hill, and Adam Briggs; Ducks of Doom is currently available through RPGnow for $2.00.

Target Audience: Game Masters using D20 fantasy games. Should also integrate into most OGL fantasy games and D&D.

Rating: 7 out of 10 candy coated golden apples.

As with previous The le offerings Ducks of Doom comes packaged as a ZIP file. Within the archive can be found THREE files! In total that’s 2 PDFs and 1 RTF. One file for screen viewing, one for printing, and one file suitable for easy editing to make life easier for GMs who may wish to customize the items. Have to love that. What? You want to know more? Then you‘re in luck because I have more to write!

Let me just say upfront that I have allowed Ducks of Doom to sit on the old hard drive for far too long while I laboriously read my way, day by day, tome by tome, gigabyte by gigabyte, through the mountain of awesome games in my file queue. Which works out perfect for you, the reader, because here‘s a D20 supplement that can put the hallo back in Halloween! Assuming you don’t mind a bit of humor mixed in with your horror?

Premise: This is a collection of supplemental magic treasure items for use with D20 fantasy role-playing games.

Usability: Variable. I’d suggest these be used only in high magic campaigns. There are only nine treasure items in this batch. However most players have probably wished at one time or another they could have a magic item or two like those found herein. Well, except for the Ducks of Ultimate Doom. I don‘t think anyone save a true comedic auteur could have thought those up; much less want their character to have them! Still this is perfect for Monty Haul GMs and those with a sense of humor. Players will definitely want their characters to acquire some of these artifacts.

Contents: Nine unique high magic treasure items. The items include: Aegis Armor, being a +1 enchanted splint mail with various powers accessible based on the level of the user; Baubles of Ancient Power, which come in 10 types; Ducks of ULTIMATE DOOM!, which have been outlined below; Paladins Vengeance, being 3 items: an amulet of Detect Living, a Push ring, and a d8+1 scepter with the added wrinkle that when any two of these items are possessed by a single person they may create holy water; a Pouch of Coins, also outlined below; Pouches of Magic Potions, which come in 7 types; a Ring of Damage Absorption, being another magic item whose powers are variable dependant upon the wearers level; a Ring of Extraordinary Charging, a totally unnecessary mondo Monty Haul version of the Ring of Damage; and the Staff of Jesters, a major artifact with variable powers keyed to the level of the wielder.

Quality: Decent. The highlights of this supplement are the Staff of Jesters, a unique item I’d classify as an almost too powerful artifact, and the titular Ducks of ULTIMATE DOOM!, which come in groups of four. And what’s so special about these ducks? For starters they are decoys that can attract geese when placed in water. These geese, once attracted, and feasted on, will literally keep a person from starving for up to one week after they‘ve been eaten. The downside, there is a set percentile chance that, every time the ducks are used, that they will turn into Vampiric Duck and attack! Vampire ducks? I smell Halloween surprise for unsuspecting players written all over this one.

Also of interest is the Pouch of Coins, which pretty much do what you think the name implies only with a twist. That twist being a misuse of the item can potentially backfire on the user in a rather unique way. However not all the items have a twist, though many do. For instance some may find the Pouches of Magic Potions to merely be a potential cause of further game imbalance. There are already more than enough things that cause game balance to tilt like a pinball machine being pounded on by a 300 stone rugby player. On the up side, while players may feel they hit the Monty Haul sweepstakes, the clever GM will likely find many diabolical ways to show the players that this is more a character trick than a treat.

Negatives: I have one main gripe about these supplements: They‘re too short! Just as you get used to the author‘s particular style of humor you find you‘ve read the entry for the last bauble. That and some of the magic items are a bit over the top. Seriously some of these items are more powerful than any artifact has a right to be. (O mondo Monty Haul Ring of Extraordinary Charging I am looking at you!) Kind of sucks, that does. Otherwise the PDFs didn‘t have any discernable technical problems.

Positives: There are bookmarks, which is very nice considering some PDFs with page counts into the hundreds don’t always have them. It’s a small thing, but the sort of detail that sticks out in your mind. If you don’t like the artifacts as written the documents are made to be modified, which means you can edit them to your hearts content.