This issue contains four articles: Constructed Heritage, Artificer, Lycanthropy Synergy Feats, and Jabberwock. Written to support EN Publishing's Level Up A5E system, I think the Gate Pass Gazette is a great way to dig into what differentiates this from 2014 or 2024 5e. For readers, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the Annual 2022 Gate Pass Gazette compilation which I am reading through in this series. However, one of the incredibility generous things about EN Publishing is that almost the entirety of this content has been released in the Creative Commons, ORC license, and OGL through the A5E SRD.
Constructed Heritage by Anthony Alipio provides essentially a Warforged or Gearforged heritage option. This generally seems in line with A5E's other options. It's of note that this character option largely disallows magical healing, requiring the mending cantrip to be used on the construct in the same round for magical healing to be effective. I particularly like the heritage gift option of the Military Frame which provides some really cool features.
The Artificer by Andrew Engelbrite is an A5E version of the Artificer class. I've taken a look at this class before and been struck by how similar it is to the original 5e version rather than being a significant revision like KibblesTasty's Inventor class. As mentioned above, the major benefit here is that this work is licensed under Creative Commons, meaning that if more creators were aware they could potentially create Artificer content compatible with most variants of 5e (disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and you shouldn't take this as legal advice).
The next article is Lycanthrope Synergy Feats by Thiago Rosa. There are outstanding and interesting mechanical ideas here and essentially a cool way to progress and increase the power of a character infected with lycanthropy. I think it certainly provides an interesting character progression option. I would have appreciated some more clarifying language to explain how to implement this subsystem and to take these as feat options when feats are normally provided in the character's class progression.
The Jabberwock, by the amazing monster designer Paul Hughes takes it's inspiration clearly from the poem by Lewis Carroll. This monster entry is written in the same style as the Monstrous Menagerie for A5E (not coincidentally Hughes was lead designer for that product). I really appreciate the extra details like encounter ideas and signs of the monster that are provided. The Jabberwock itself is a great example of the fantasy driving design, with interesting mechanics for the jabber curse that the creature can inflict and for it's flight, among other things.
Overall, some interesting material. The Artificer offers interesting possibilities for design and could be potentially adapted for other versions of 5e. The Jabberwock can definitely be used in whatever version of 5e you are playing in a forest infulluenced by the Fey lands, or even in that other world itself.
Looking forward to checking out Issue 1 next!
Gate Pass Gazette Reflections Main Page
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