Trashes & Treasures: Older 3rd Party Sourcebooks, a Walking Tour

[Particle_Man]

It sounds like a great idea for a computer program to generate towns, etc. based on the books random generation tables.

[Saintheart]

It sounds like a great idea for a computer program to generate towns, etc. based on the books random generation tables.

I know, right?! You sit down and you read it and you get started trying to generate all this and although it's exciting and full of potential for setting off ideas, it's just a massive job if you want to create an entire city with power centres and all. But then I tend to find random generators really helpful as plot or story prompts, you roll up two random things next to each other and immediately you start thinking about possible associations between them - that's hacking our own brains' meaning engines to do a bit of good. But yeah, I have zero computing skill, but even looking at it it is ripe for Excel spreadsheet entry and even some sort of simple app or program to procedurally generate a city.

[Troacctid]

You could try Chartopia. That's what I used for my random warmage generator.

[Saintheart]

You could try Chartopia. That's what I used for my random warmage generator.

Thanks - I'll go and check that out!

[Caelestion]

The quote from Monte Cook was (I'm fairly sure) from a review posted on his website, way back when.

The third edition still retains a subtle serif font, but the typeface is larger and everything seems slightly better spaced, which is part of why the third edition is 40 pages longer.

[Kalkra]

Thinking about it, medieval stasis actually makes a bit more sense in DnD given polytheism. The whole scientific revolution was predicated on the assumption that the rules by which the world runs are consistent both temporally and spatially, which basically requires monotheism (or atheism, but that wasn't really a thing).
Ironically, you can see this just by reading the sourcebooks. DnD is a classic example of a what a world would look like if it were created by multiple deities, who clearly don't always agree with one another. While the BoVD and BoED are probably the clearest examples of this, there are plenty of other examples, and that's just on the players' end. On the characters' end, the world actually is subject to the capricious and unknowable whims of various deities. Nobody's going to be a scientist when it's raining toads.

[Endless Rain]

Thinking about it, medieval stasis actually makes a bit more sense in DnD given polytheism. The whole scientific revolution was predicated on the assumption that the rules by which the world runs are consistent both temporally and spatially, which basically requires monotheism (or atheism, but that wasn't really a thing).

Yeah... no. Polytheists can, and do, assume that the laws of physics are consistent.

[RexDart]

I think D&D presupposes the existence of a single supreme deity who rules over all others, the embodiment of the Lawful Neutral alignment. Unknowable but with unfathomable power.

Virtually everything in the world adheres to a carefully constructed grid, figuratively or literally. A standard Fireball spell, though made with the raw unorganized material of fire, will always affect people within a 20-ft.-radius spread. No more, no less. Stand within the spread and you can be burned to a crisp in an instant. Five feet away and you're absolutely, perfectly safe.

And even the metamagic that lets spellcasters "cheat" is carefully and precisely bounded. Widen spell can be used to change the above rule... but never in a way that makes it go beyond a 40-ft.-radius spread!

There are countless other examples demonstrating that the cosmology of the D&D world is where Law ultimately reigns supreme.

[Kalkra]

Yeah... no. Polytheists can, and do, assume that the laws of physics are consistent.

I think D&D presupposes the existence of a single supreme deity who rules over all others, the embodiment of the Lawful Neutral alignment. Unknowable but with unfathomable power.

Virtually everything in the world adheres to a carefully constructed grid, figuratively or literally. A standard Fireball spell, though made with the raw unorganized material of fire, will always affect people within a 20-ft.-radius spread. No more, no less. Stand within the spread and you can be burned to a crisp in an instant. Five feet away and you're absolutely, perfectly safe.

And even the metamagic that lets spellcasters "cheat" is carefully and precisely bounded. Widen spell can be used to change the above rule... but never in a way that makes it go beyond a 40-ft.-radius spread!

There are countless other examples demonstrating that the cosmology of the D&D world is where Law ultimately reigns supreme.

Maybe I was unclear. My point was that when so much of what's observed is a result of the will of some specific entity at that moment, people just won't get into the mindset of determining the fundamental rules.

[Particle_Man]

By the way, an excerpt (Chapters 3 and 4 from "A Magical Medieval Society (the second printing))" was released by Expeditious Retreat Press for "pay what you want", and entitled "A Magical Medieval Society: City Guide", if people want a taste before deciding to buy:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...ety-City-Guide

[Saintheart]

Beyond Monks: The Art of the Fight, Chainmail Bikini Games

Spoiler

Show

Summary
For those who aren’t satisfied with the monk’s defensiveness, or looking for an unarmed fighter that looks more like a martial artist without the spiritual aspect as such, this book is designed to satisfy your cravings. Leaving aside the new base class of the Martial Artist, the book gives us 10 new prestige class,s new feats, new archetypes, new combat options, skill uses, and other stuff. It is a box of tools to bring the martial arts to life in your campaign.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2002, 64 pages. It’s 3.0, though, so it would need some adjustment when used in 3.5. Chainmail Bikini Games seems to have long gone out of business, and only had two titles: this one, and a Paladin sourcebook called (I kid you not) Call of Duty which was done under 3.5. The writer, James ‘Gargoyle’ Garr, doesn’t seem to have gone on to anything else, and the only other guy listed as assisting with design only shows up as a playtester for obscure products later.

Originally the book was distributed as a PDF (apparently), and the print version (at least as at 2003) was published through Goodman Games. An online search tells us it got an Honourable Mention for Best Rules Sourcebook in the 2002 GenCon ENnies, for what it’s worth. The author made a few posts over in ENWorld around the time the book was released, but didn’t stick around. The book doesn’t seem to be available on large market RPG websites, and while Goodman Games’ website does refer to it, they don’t appear to stock it anymore. You may have to look elsewhere in the virtual or real world to find it.

Notable Features
Martial Artist (base class): Full BAB, which is good. D10 hit dice, i.e. matches the Fighter. +12/+12/+6 on the Fort/Ref/Will saves across 20 levels, which isn’t as good on Will as Monk, but matches it otherwise. +6 Dodge bonus to armor over 20 levels which is better than the monk’s equivalent ability, albeit he doesn’t add WIS to AC like a monk does. His unarmed damage gets to a base of 4d6 at level 18. Unarmed damage is more or less on par with the Monk from levels 1-10, but from 11 onwards the Martial Artist starts picking up 2d8, 1d20, and finally 4d6 damage. He can’t wear any armor at all, though, and he cannot use a non-finessable weapon, although all monk weapons are always considered finessable weapons. Any part of his body can be used as a weapon, like the monk, but when fighting with a one-handed weapon, he can only make an unarmed attack with the off hand, and it has to follow the rules for TWF. (This is likely a leftover from the 3.0 days). The martial artist can also flurry with any light weapon or any monk weapon as well. (However, once again you’re dealing with the 3.0 version of Flurry, which imposed a -2 penalty on all attacks, and that penalty never went away.)

And then we start getting into the martial artist’s answers to the random swag of abilities the monk gets. First, a sort-of barbarian rage: +20 feet to your base speed (up to maximum of 50 feet), +2 haste bonus to AC, attack roll penalties in a flurry are reduced by 1. Lasts for 3 + CON bonus rounds, fatigued afterward. However, you only get these 3/day even at level 20. Second, Finishing Move: once per round, sacrifice your DEX bonus to AC and dodge bonuses to AC for 1 round, and make a single attack (attack action) to hit someone harder. If it succeeds, bonus damage which is added last, after any critical hits. This starts at +2d6 at second level, and goes no higher than +5d6 at 18th level. There’s four bonus feats from a limited list, and five Martial Secrets, which can be selected from a list of about 36, and which range from minor to interesting. Some of these Martial Secrets duplicate monk abilities. Some are obsolete due to the changes to monk weapons and monk flurries in 3.5. And some are still interesting: the ability to ready a full attack rather than just ready a standard action; utilise spears as a finessable, bludgeoning/piercing double weapon; pick up Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot when throwing shuriken; Toughness for free; make an extra-high jump during combat which gives you +1 competence bonus to attack rolls for every 5 ranks you have with the Jump skill; make two extra attacks in a flurry of blows instead of one; gain more bonus feats; increase base speed by 10 feet; 4 free skill points; +1 to attack for another -2 to AC when charging with an unarmed attack; flurry of blows with a spiked chain; finesse with bastard sword, katana, or two-bladed sword; add WIS to attack rolls instead of STR. That said, some of these have substantial feat requirements attached to them. Lastly, 4+INT skill points.

When it comes to multiclassing, there’s an odd mechanic where you stack your Monk and Martial Artist levels together for the purposes of working out the unarmed damage, but it’s the Monk’s unarmed damage that counts. However, if the Martial Artist levels alone result in a higher unarmed damage dice, the Martial Artist dice is used instead. This makes it a bit trickier to play the old Monk’s Belt + Monk’s Tattoo game of increasing your levels for unarmed damage, but it does make a case for dipping Monk now and then maybe. Very unfortunately, and it may have been an editing oversight, every prestige class in the book advances monk unarmed damage rather than Martial Artist damage progression. It’s annoying when the base class can’t play well with the prestige classes from the same book.
Blade Artist (prestige class): It’s only 7/10 BAB, but for people using dual daggers this could have some very nice synergies with stuff like Invisible Blade or Master Thrower. The first level abilities – which might suffice for a dip –flat out give the character Weapon Specialisation and denial of DEX bonus to AC if you draw a dagger and immediately make a melee or thrown attack with it (albeit applies only to the first such attack in a combat.) This takes a little of the pressure off the Flick of the Wrist skill trick which is otherwise de rigeur for this sort of build. Second level’s most significant ability is to grant you Rapid Throw, i.e. make an extra attack with a thrown dagger at a -2. (If you’ve got Rapid Shot already, the throws are at a -1 instead). Third level, intriguingly, provides that your signature dagger “is considered a natural weapon”. Might be interesting for some other prestige classes! And you can use the stunning attacks with it. Utilising this class would probably take a bit more analysis and dipping/multiclassing than I can really do here, but it’s got potential.
Crooked Monk 1-4 (prestige class): Well, at least it demands you have levels in 3 different core classes to qualify, so hurrah to all the LEGO-builders out there. The first four levels give you 2 extra skill points per level in cross-class skills, the monk’s flurry of blows, don’t have to move in a straight line to charge, and +5 feet of reach to your unarmed attacks, i.e. hello unarmed Reach. Rest of it is on par with monk.
Ghost Killer (prestige class): 7/10 BAB, Saves are +7 across the board. From first level your unarmed attacks are Ghost Touch weapons. You arguably pick up the ability to turn undead, and do extra damage to undead. Gain a +5 to all Knowledge checks over 10 levels, which isn’t bad for Knowledge Devotion types. Very limited Contact Other Plane ability, immunity to fear, and one or two random other abilities.
Ki Blaster 1 (prestige class): 5 levels, 3/5 BAB. Basically, give up one of your stunning attacks for the day and, in place of an unarmed strike, fire a ranged touch attack which does an energy type of damage (you have to pick one at the start. However, the types include [Sonic].) The amount of damage is equal to your base unarmed damage, and the action happens in place of an unarmed strike (only 1 per round). Doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity. The blast has a save for half damage – Fort DC 10+half your character level+WIS – so the wording seems to suggest that you might be able to do this as part of a full attack, e.g. get a bit more use out of those -5 or -10 attacks by making a single ranged touch attack at another target which does an energy ball of damage. The other five levels basically increase the utility of the blast, e.g. stun with it, use another energy type, throw more than 1 blast per round, or turn it into a cone effect. But really I see this prestige class as a single-level dip to pick up a ranged touch attack which inflicts your base unarmed damage … which might be substantial if you’ve managed to optimise it using Monks Belt + Monk’s Tattoo + sizing ab/use. At the very least it’s a nice alternative once the stun-immune creatures start showing up, because this thing does energy damage and works on all creatures.
Psynergist (prestige class): Hey, someone remembered psionics exist! I don’t know the ins and outs of psionics, but the most significant feature to me is that it allows you to convert stunning attack uses into power points, at a rate of gaining 3 points for 1 converted attack. The class also complements Tashalatora: the feat allows you to stack monk and psionic levels for AC bonus, flurries, and unarmed damage, the Psynergist allows fast movement and stunning attacks per day from monk levels to stack as well. In terms of powers progression, I’m guessing it’s pretty limited: +7 power points per day over 10 levels, and new powers discovered of 0, 1, and 2nd level. No bonus power points, and they don’t have a primary discipline. The other abilities are relatively straightforward, consisting mainly of bonus feats and certain abilities like minor increases to saves and (at the top end) a Haste ability if you have a certain amount of power points in reserve. BAB 4 to qualify, and 4+ base power points per day.
Sylvan Monk (prestige class): In the grand tradition of being a defensive unarmed fighter … oh, look, if you’re just wanting to trip the hell out of anything coming at you, then you could do a hell of a lot worse than this. We’ll leave aside the capstone, which twice per day allows you to avoid an attack of pretty much any kind by quite literally ceasing to exist for a round. The 9th level ability, Bend But Not Break, makes you flat-out immune to being tripped or bull rushed. “All attempts to do so fail, and you simply roll with the attack and remain in place.” That therefore counts for any retributive trip an opponent tries on you, too. Then there’s Power Throw: when you successfully make any trip attack, you automatically deal your unarmed strike damage to the tripped opponent. This is on top of the free attack that comes off Improved Trip, I hasten to add. Next, Redirection: if an opponent misses you by 10 or more with a melee attack, they provoke an AoO from you that can only be used to make a trip attack. Oh, and that error margin shrinks too: by 10th level, if the opponent misses you by a piddling 4 or more, instant AoO. This is amazeballs on its own, and that’s before you get to the fact it allows you to use the Leveraged Throw feat in these AoOs, which we’ll get to. The class otherwise grants you Improved Evasion, dodge bonuses to AC scaling with how many Knowledge (Nature) ranks you have (max +5), DR 3/-, Dimension Door 2/day, Defensive Roll like a rogue, and SR 15+Sylvan Monk class level. BAB 7/10. The prerequisites are 5 feats and the Evasion ability, but most are feats you’d actually use with this thing. 4+INT skill points, can’t wear armor. Advances monk unarmed damage, fast movement, and slow fall abilities of a monk. Earliest you could get into this would be level 6 or so, thus, all this stuff by level 16.
Artful Dodge (feat): INT instead of DEX bonus to your AC, which is just gold for Carmendine Monks, Knowledge Devotion fighters, Archivists, and pretty much every Wizard ever.
Bull Charge (feat): Takes speed 40 or greater, but, whenever you hit with a charging attack, you may immediately attempt a bull rush (as a charge action) on the same guy as a free action. No, not a bull rush during a charge, after you know the charge has hit.
Channel Ki (feat): Metamagic. Give up a stunning attack attempt, drop the cost of any other metamagic feat on a spell by one, to a minimum of zero. Can only be used by spontaneous spellcasters, though.
Charge Throw (feat): Whenever opponent charges you, they provoke an AoO that can only be used on a trip attack. If successful, the opponent is prone in the direction of the charge five feet from you and his charge attack automatically fails. Skip that whole ‘ready spears against a charge’ thing and just flip the flacker off his feet instead!
Combat Mind (feat): Choose to take a -4 to initiative roll, get either a +1 insight to attack rolls for the fight or a +1 dodge bonus to AC, at your choice.
Dancing Charge (feat): Don’t have to move in a straight line to charge, so long as you’re in light armor or less. Prerequisite is just five ranks in Perform (Dance)!
Expert Disarm (feat): Ho hum, it’s disarm, what can I … wait. If I disarm and have a free hand, I grab their weapon and can make an immediate AoO against the opponent with it!
Far Strike (feat): burn a stunning fist use and your unarmed attacks can be used as ranged attacks – treated as a thrown weapon attack with a range increment of 10 feet that does damage as a normal unarmed strike.
Flashback (feat): Haven’t got space for a feat? Burn a stunning attack and use a feat from the martial artist’s bonus feat list for 1 round without having to meet its prerequisites.
Flash Attack (feat): If you take the refocus action, next round you get an extra partial action that can only be used to attack an opponent in melee. Might allow you to attack someone, finish them off, move, and then attack someone else.
Flip Kick: (feat): If you use Tumble to get through an enemy square without provoking an AoO, that enemy provokes an attack of opportunity from you, but it must be an unarmed kick.
Leveraged T h r o w (feat): Whenever you make a readied trip attack triggered by a melee attack against you, and the opponent has a higher STR that you, you may use the opponent’s STR score for the opposed roll instead of your own, and the opponent must use their DEX score. They also can’t attempt to trip you if the attempt fails. If they were charging or bull rushing, you get a +4 to the STR roll. Typically your STR is lower than the opponent when it’s a big bruiser; this gives you an immediate advantage. And typically monsters don’t have a high DEX, especially those with a STR and/or size advantage - much of their AC comes from natural armor or armor, so not only are you neutralising their advantage but forcing them to one of their lesser abilities. Also note how the Sylvan Monk uses this feat, it’s not too bad at all for trippers.
Melee Spell (feat): Metamagic, but very easy prerequisites. You can make an extra unarmed strike immediately after successfully casting a spell with a somatic component and a casting time of one action (likely standard, that’s 3.0 wording). +1 to spell level, and can only be used by those who prepare their spells. “But True Strike doesn’t have a somatic component…” I give you Primitive Caster from Frostburn, which requires that you have two hands free to add a somatic component to the spell. Behold, now you can cast True Strike and smash the opponent in the face with your unarmed attack in the same round. Enlightened Fist or Sacred Fist seem good candidates for this option (but sadly, not unarmed Duskblade since they don’t prepare spells; Ordained Champion might be able to use it, but you’d need DM adjudication because of the PrC’s modified spontaneous casting).
Mighty Strike (feat): Take a -4 on an unarmed strike, and if it hits, the base damage is increased by one step; 1d8 becomes 1d10, 1d10 becomes 1d12, that sort of thing.
Mongoose Strike (feat): Give up a stunning attack attempt, and for one round your opponent can’t use any DEX bonus to AC or dodge bonuses against your unarmed strikes. “So if I dip Monk and then go Rogue…” Sadly, no, a Mongoose Strike explicitly cannot be a sneak attack. “But what if I dip Monk, and then go Ninja?” Ah, so! By RAW Sudden Strike is not locked out by this technique, most likely because Complete Adventurer didn’t exist at the time this book was written.
Ponderous Attack (feat): If you delay until you’re the last person to act in the round, your first melee attack gets a +2 to attack and damage. Not a bad option if your Initiative count sucks anyway.
P O U N C E (feat): Forget all that applying to strange barbarian tribes for membership, forget all that class feature finagling and/or shapeshifting. Get Lightning Reflexes, Speed 40 feet, BAB +6, don’t wear heavy armour, and you may use the full attack action to make multiple melee attacks when charging.
Somersault Charge (feat): If you move at least 20 feet on a charge, and make a Tumble check at DC 20, no -2 to AC on the charge.
Strike Through (feat): Give up a stunning attack for the day, and for 1 round all your unarmed attacks ignore the opponent’s armor and cover bonuses to AC (magical enhancement bonuses to AC still count.)
Weapon Handling (feat): Sheathe your weapon as a free action once per round. If you’re going with Iaijutsu Focus, this is a little less silly than Quick Draw and throwing multiple katanas at people.
Elven Fencing (feat): It’s a similar ‘capstone feat’ like the stuff we see at the top end of fighting schools in Quintessential Monk 2 and Quintessential Fighter, but unfortunately it still takes up a feat slot. The prerequisites include slightly useless stuff like Improved Disarm and Analyze Opponent which is weak and from this book. However, if you’re using a rapier (or rather, any weapon, thanks very much Aptitude weapons), then any melee attack roll that misses you by more than 4 provokes an attack of opportunity from you. This isn’t too damn bad for AoO optimisers and works like the Sylvan Monk capstone.
Mage Fighting (feat): Again, capstone feat, but it drops the spell level increase for Melee Casting (above) down to zero. Thus, your standard action spells with somatic components now come with free unarmed attacks on the end of them. Six feats, though, but for a gish it’s worth thinking about.
Curved Death (feat): Capstone feat again, but when hitting with a kukri, you do damage as if it were a (3.0) wounding weapon.
Chain Storm (feat): Capstone feat again, but when using the spiked chain, get Whirlwind Attack as a free bonus feat, even if you don’t have the prerequisites, and you can attack anyone within your 10 foot threat range when using the spiked chain. The prerequisites for this feat don’t include any of the actual prerequisites for Whirlwind Attack.
Focused Attack (new skill use, Concentration): Use the full attack action to make a single, focused attack. For every 5 ranks you have in Concentration, get a +1 bonus to your attack roll. Can’t move during the round except 5 foot step before the attack. Might be of interest to martial adept classes in particular which use Diamond Mind, and it sure has synergy with the Decisive Strike ACF for monks.
Guided Stars (magic item): +1 returning shuriken that ignore cover bonuses to AC and concealment miss chances so long as the target doesn’t have 100% cover or full concealment. 9,000 gp for 3.
Bracers of Blocking (magic item): Once per round, if you’d normally be hit with a melee attack, make a DC 20 Reflex saving throw (any magical bonus to the attack raises the DC accordingly). If your Reflex check succeeds, the attack is blocked. 16,000gp, this is pretty damn good given it doesn’t matter whether it’s a natural 20 or how big the attack roll is, the Reflex save is DC 20 plus spare change.
Headband of War (magic item): 20,000 gp. +2 to STR, DEX and CON and -2 to WIS. People give up racial hit dice or level adjustments for this sort of stuff. (In case it escapes your notice, the headband is a single, red bit of cloth tied at the back … i.e. Rambo or Liu Kang…)
Robe of Mastery: For 26,000gp, pick up use of a chosen bonus feat and a +4 armor bonus to AC while you’re wearing the robe. This is exceptionally good for the price.


Dreadful Features
Armor Pugilist (prestige class): Critical immunity, DR 3/-, immunity to pain, and +3 to natural armor are nice and all, but I don’t think I’d wait 10 levels with 7/10 BAB to get it all, especially given that’s all I can get.
Blood Hunter (prestige class): The fluff is amazing – you’ve learned the secret martial arts of vampires, and eventually will try to murder the vampire you’re pledged to – but the crunch is not terribly strong. Perhaps the most notable elements are that it somewhat accelerates the Martial Artist’s Finishing Move damage when unarmed, and allows you at first level to treat your unarmed strikes as slashing or piercing attacks, and gain a +1 to damage.
Storm Lord (prestige class): Same problem as Arcane Archer and Arcane Duelist, demands that you’re able to cast an [electricity] spell* but then doesn’t advance your spellcasting beyond something that looks akin to a Storm domain spell list which you can pick up as spell-like abilities. At least they don’t make it once per day, you have to burn stunning fist attacks to use it. Can do innate Shocking Grasp spells … once every other round, which don’t attract an attack of opportunity. If you really want this, then dip it for a couple of levels and be done with it.
*Alternatively, you have to have been struck by lightning during an actual storm, which is hilarious.
Tanterist (prestige class): Pressure points, the class. With one exception – disarming touch – it’s all stun attacks and minor ability damage, and it only applies to humanoids or monstrous humanoids. Blech.
Being Elsewhere (feat): Provided you have a base speed of 90 feet, get 10% miss chance due to fast movement. Prrrretty sure there’s an editing problem there…
Combination (feat): So if I score a critical threat on an unarmed strike, instead of confirming the critical I could make an extra unarmed strike using the same attack bonus but at a +4 to the attack roll. But … I scored a critical threat, I already have done damage, I don’t need to confirm it. The only situation in which it makes any sense to take this would be if your fists have a number of effects on them that are not multiplied on a critical hit. Otherwise this is literally no different an outcome than taking a feat with a +4 on a critical confirmation roll, since a critical confirmation roll is by definition an attack roll with all your modifiers intact. Sure, the next roll could be a critical, but you’re literally throwing away the chance of one critical for the chance of … another critical.
Creature Club (feat): Pick up a creature and use it as a club, hur hur hur. I’d be more impressed if swinging halflings around did more than 1d6 damage, although the slightly larger area I threaten is interesting at least. Bonus points, if the target is wearing spiked armour it does more damage.
Double Strike (feat): Like Double Hit, only terribad worse.
Precise Attack (feat): On your turn, before making any attack rolls, choose to gain a +2 competence bonus to melee attack rolls and do half damage. “Ssssso if I Power Attac—” Special: This feat may not be used at the same time as Power Attack. “DAMMIT!”
One Against Many (feat): Get Whirlwind Attack as a free bonus feat when making unarmed attacks, even if you don’t meet the prerequisites. The problem is that the prerequisites for One Against Many include Combat Expertise, Dodge, and Mobility, as well as three other unrelated feats which aren’t really that strong individually or in combination, so you’re basically relieving the person of the need to take two feats provided they take three others. Decidedly mediocre at best.


Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Mostly players. Yes, GMs can use it, but it’s mostly player options.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: In broad terms, the book gets better as you read further. The Martial Artist is nice but difficult to multiclass effectively with; the prestige classes are situational but dippable in some instances; the feats have a treasure trove of useable stuff for martial types and gishes, even if a fair proportion of it is pretty low-powered if not ineffective. Maybe the thing I liked best was the way it makes stunning attacks more versatile. Leaving aside that a stun has a couple of gates put on it to actually hit something with it, a fair number of creatures are immune to it. A goodly number of the options in the book do something with this by forcing consumption of stunning attack uses. Building up a substantial number of stun attack attempts might not be as simple as picking up nightsticks, but there are feats for it and in instances like Flashback or Mongoose Strike, you might not need many stun attempts per day to make this worthwhile. There’s a lot of good stuff in here that addresses martial shortcomings, even if it’s unarmed for the most part, and which gives martials more options. Like all feat-based martial books, it has to compete and come up more or less short against Tome of Battle for optionality, but for games that exclude that book, this is a strong book, particularly for unarmed martials. It’s surprising how reasonably balanced this turned out to be. I give this a 3/4.

On concepts and fluff: I have to say I like most of the concepts in the book, even if it’s not quite so gorgeously realised as Quintessential Monk or the like. There’s a bit of wuxia here, and it’s not as though the prestige class concepts are really fully-realised, but some of them are really solid and Sylvan Monk in particular far better mechanises the concept of the defensive martial artist than most of the Setting Sun discipline in Tome of Battle. In addition, you get the sense that an actual gamer wrote this thing with the references to Min/Maxing and other advice. There were real signs here that the writer really got at least some of the issues that the monk has. And to great credit, the author also provides a decent slab of advice for how to better run sessions, i.e. how better to run sessions rather than how to run adventures. This takes the form of a section titled ‘Cinematic Combat’ which gives DM advice on running combat that’s actually not bad: consider forgetting maps, don’t play out pointless combats, use a timer, get the players to help you run the combat, all good basic stuff. The advice is more pragmatic than most. Give this one a 3/4.


On presentation: Sans serif fonts! It’s all black and white Arial for a change. Has an index. The artwork is just eye-bleedingly bad to my taste, and the pages are a little crowded, but at least I could get through the book without feeling like I’m falling asleep. This guy must’ve liked his old D&D modules. Give this a 1/2.

Total: 7/10.


Next Time: The Quintessential Barbarian, Mongoose Publishing.

[Kalkra]

If I were pulling infinite attack shenanigans with Aptitude weapons and Snap Kick/Lightning Mace, I'd probably include Combination. It seems built for degeneracy and nothing else. Sylvan Monk looks nice, but I'd be interested to see how it stacks up against other tripping builds.

[StSword]

Actually there's a feat that allows spontaneous casters to prepare spells- Arcane Preparation.

So if it's worth a feat tax, than sorcerers and other spontaneous casters can get goodies that require spell preparation.

And of course another book that I look for and fail to find a non-dead tree version. Sigh.

[Feldar]

A Magic Medieval Society: Western Europe, Expeditious Retreat Press (2nd edition)

The review made me want to at least read the book, but sadly the book is insanely priced (on Amazon at least).

[RexDart]

The review made me want to at least read the book, but sadly the book is insanely priced (on Amazon at least).

It's available on DriveThruRPG (3rd edition) for a pretty reasonable price:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product...-Third-Edition

[Bavarian itP]

I just purchased Midnight and A Medieval Society through drivethrurpg, thanks for this thread showing those hidden gems

[Saintheart]

The Quintessential Barbarian, Mongoose Publishing

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Summary
This is a book designed to grant more options for barbarians. As with the other Quintessentials, it is a significant assortment of features, feats, prestige classes, equipment, and rules designed to make playing Barbarians more fun, if not more powerful (the standard warning of the Quintessential series being that they don’t promise their books will not necessarily do so.)

Date of Publication and Page Count
2003, 130 pages. Once again we’re in Mongoose’s Quintessential series which was pumped out by Mongoose at a rapid rate of knots over the first years of third edition. The book’s 3.0 references lead one to assume it was prepared before 3.5 came out that same year. This was the second Mongoose book for the writer, Robert J. Schwalb. If the name sounds familiar, that would likely be because he went on to write the PHB 2, Tome of Magic (with others), Elder Evils, Exemplars of Evil, Drow of the Underdark, and the Fiendish Codex 2 for WOTC. Moving on to Green Ronin, who he was with for some years, he was the lead writer on their Song of Ice and Fire RPG (which, in passing, has an awesome social combat system, really works for that world). However, all of those works were in his future when he produced this. The book doesn’t seem to be readily available for purchase on large market RPG websites, and so you might have to extend your search further into the real or online world to pick up a copy.

Notable Features
Abandoned (character background): For those of you who haven’t seen this before, the Quintessential series offers a character a benefit matched with a penalty centred around a character archetype. In the case of this, the Abandoned, the barbarian has been literally raised by wild creatures, and they pick up a certain ability depending on the creature that raised them. Variously, the barbarian picks up +4 to Climb, a Climb speed, Scent; +2 to STR and +4 to Swim; 1/day, charge by moving 3xtheir normal speed, +20 feet of movement instead of +10; Pounce, +2 at least to Hide, Move Silently, and Balance; or the Improved Trip feat. Oh, and they also pick up the old 3.0 versions of Animal Empathy and Speak with Animals (of the kind that raised them). The penalty is that they don’t have a language, and have to spend skill points to Speak Language as cross-class skills. They also don’t have the Barbarian’s DR, and a very limited skill list. Leaving aside the character concept is amazing, both simple and intuitive, the mechanical benefits are great: basically you’re paying a few skill points and the barbarian’s pretty piddly damage resistance for some really solid features.
Exile (character background): How’d you like to be cast out of your tribe and have a visible brand of your great crime, in return for Hide, Move Silently, Pick Pocket, and Open Lock class skills? Plus Uncanny Dodge one level earlier, and immune to flank at level 4? Sure, you get your Rage a level later, and you lose Handle Animal, Ride, and so on as class skills.
Explorer (character background): 6+INT skill points per level, can purchase literacy at 1 skill point rather than 2. Diplomacy, Gather Information, Sense Motive, Knowledge (Geography) are class skills. However, no fast movement, and the rage gets nerfed a bit.
Ex-Slave (character background): +1 bonus per level (max +5) against the race that held him captive. Also gets Iron Will at first level. However, only proficient in simple weapons and no armour, and only starts with 1d4x10gp. Not a bad way to pick up a free feat.
Gladiator (character background): Gain Bluff and Sense Motive as class skills, pick up a single Exotic Weapon Proficiency for free. Lose access to Craft, Handle Animal, Ride, Swim and Survival.
Lunatic (character background): +6 to STR, CON and +4 to Will saves during Rage, and gain Frenzy. However, -4 to AC, and only 2+INT skill points per level. And lose access to Handle Animal and Survival, and have the GM select one or two stimuli that trigger him.
Manhunter (character background): Females who’ve escaped their societies and hang out in the deep jungle. FAVORED ENEMY BENEFITS AGAINST THE ENTIRE MALE GENDER, and if they have Favored Enemy from another class, the bonuses stack.
Cold (regional benefit): So on top of the character background features, Q.Barbarian also offers available benefits depending on the region your character is from. This requires work with the DM to know which regions are available, but this (and the technology level – Default, Dark Age, or Bronze Age) provide a small menu of extra benefits. For Cold regions, it’s Cold Resistance 2, +4 to Survival when in the Arctic, unhindered movement when moving through snow, or free EWP in harpoon.
Desert (regional benefit): +4 to Ride checks on camels.
Forest (regional benefit): EWP (blowgun), +4 to Hide and Move Silently checks in forest terrain, Alertness.
Hills (regional benefit): Track as bonus feat, Weapon Focus (Sling) as bonus feat.
Mountains (regional benefit): Cold Resistance 5, Track, +4 to Climb and Jump, +2 competence to Craft checks.
Plains (regional benefit): +5 to base speed, speak an extra language, Knowledge (Astrology) class skill, Alertness, or +4 to Survival
Underground (regional benefit): Darkvision 30 feet, or +30 feet to races that already have it; Alertness, Blind-Fight, +4 to Hide … but always Light Sensitive as a penalty.
Despoiler 1 (prestige class): The Despoiler comes on relatively late – minimum character level 12 – but if you’re looking for Spell Resistance 21 against divine spells, this might be worth the dip. Otherwise grants a little smite and Fast Heal 2, and so not that impressive, but at least it’s full BAB and only 5 levels. The class is designed for barbarians who want to wipe religions off the map.
Devolutionary (prestige class): Only five levels, and at the end you’re permanently in the Rage state … but by that point you literally can’t speak anymore and your INT-based skills are pretty much tanked. Gets you Pounce and Scent and one or two other bits and pieces.
Master of the Hunt (prestige class): Over 5 levels, pick up a pack of loyal Dire Doges Wolves equal to 5+CHA mod, befriended as if you’d cast Animal Friendship. Picks up Scent, share your Rage feature with the rest of the pack. The capstone is the lycanthrope template (werewolf). All this and full BAB. Unfortunately you can’t get any of it without BAB +15 and four useless feats, although it might be more exciting than Barbarian 15-20.
Intimidation (new skill use): Basically, split intimidation into six individual skills, which are still intimidation but key off the six different primary stats. The check is also markedly different from 3.5: you can “change others’ behaviour” with a check of DC 10 + target’s HD, which is markedly easier and more predictable than the opposed roll version in 3.5.
Zweihander (exotic weapon): 2d8 base damage and 18-20 critical threat range. Need 18 STR to wield it at all. Up there with the biggest native damage dice and widest native threat range of all D&D 3.5 weapons.
Focused Rage (feat): Rather than it having to be your STR and CON, pick which of your primary stats are increased by +4 during your rage. (Can’t choose the same stat twice).
Presence (feat): Really good for rogues who can’t, or don’t want to, resort to the standard old Flick of the Wrist + Gnomish Quickrazor attack sequence. Standard action (which doesn’t draw an AoO), roll your Intimidation against the opponent’s Will saving throw; highest result wins. If you’re successful, your next attack on the opponent denies his DEX bonus to AC, but the attack must be made on (or before) your next turn, which means it can also apply to AoOs. Intimidate skill checks scale a hell of a lot faster than Will saves, even against mages, and certainly on beefy martials … not to mention this feat gives a +2 to Intimidate checks anyway.
Punishing Strike (feat): Whenever you make a critical hit on the opponent, hit him again at the same attack modifier as the one that scored the critical hit. Only once per round and therefore a bit more balanced than Lightning Mace, although there’s a few more prerequisites to make up.
Unbeliever (feat): +4 to all saves against divine magic.
Two-Handed Weapon Mastery (feat): when using a weapon in two hands, double your STR modifier for the purposes of dealing damage. +4 to opposed disarm, and always able to take an AoO against an opponent who attempts to disarm you, even if they have Improved Disarm. If you prefer bastard swords and can’t get Exotic Weapon Master as a class, I guess there’s always this.
Peerless Armour (new armour): Basically an improved masterwork armor. -2 to the ACP and +1 to the Armor bonus, though magic enhancements don’t stack with these … but the cost for enchanting this armour is 25% lower than standard, which is a handy saving.
Bone Armour (new armour): +2 circumstance bonus to Intimidation, and -5% arcane spell failure chance when casting from the Necromancy school. However, -4 to Move Silently, and if an opponent hits you with a natural 20, the armour’s bonus to AC drops by 1. And that’s bearing in mind its armor bonus is -2 on the standard armour version anyway.
Iron Armour (new armour): -20% to the cost, but +20% to its weight. Could be worse.
Survival (Chapter, Expanded Rules): Lots more granular rules around subjects like weather, trailing, stalking, hunting, fishing, how much food and water you need, getting lost, all the rest of it, in the wilderness. Admittedly most of these issues will be trivial for mid- to high-level parties, but they do provide a good, meaty way to get into environmental hazards and making the journey to or from the dungeon of interest a bit more interesting and variable. Well worth a bit of a study for the DM.

Dreadful Features
Guide (character background): I like the idea, but I don’t think I’d want a Cleric’s BAB as well as Track and access to Hide, Knowledge (Geography), and Move Silently.
Fetish Warrior (prestige class): Eat body parts, get weak healing. Skin an enemy and pick up its natural armor bonus. Absorb a random spell. Great ideas, stupid execution, especially without full BAB.
Pit Fighter (prestige class): Over 5 levels, +2d6 sneak attack, DR 2/- that stacks with Barbarian’s, and Feint as a move action rather than standard action. Meh.
Planar Savage (prestige class): Elemental Resistance 10, can see into the ethereal plane, can dimension door DEX bonus times per day, 60 feet around you is barred to extradimensional travel, but it’s likely still inferior to Horizon Walker.
Wizard Slayer (prestige class): First level is distasteful to such a point you either go all the way or don’t dip this at all. At level 1, in return for sensing magic and a +2 to all saves on spells and spell-like abilities, any magic item coming into your hands has its powers suppressed: arcane, divine, psionic, even artefacts. This might seem fun until you realise that melee basically only keeps up with magic items, especially around BAB +8 where this kicks in. Magic spells cast by others don’t seem to be bound by this though, so hope you got an understanding caster in your party. The capstone, which thankfully happens in 5 levels rather than 10, is that if you (sigh) make a readied action, and roll an attack roll against the DC of an incoming spell, you can deflect it harmlessly away (critical hit deflects the spell back on the caster). Stupid class.


Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
It's mostly for players, but as a GM of mostly low to mid level parties, I love any guidance that’s given about wilderness travel, and this book has a big wad of information on that.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics: In summary – more toys, not a lot of extra power, but strong attempt to match a concept to a build. Barbarians basically come down to two or three key things: rage, size, BAB, and more rage, size, and BAB. The problem being for barbarians that the character level teens stitch the BAB and rage improvements up with low-powered stuff like trap sense and (low end) damage reduction. The traditional approach, so far as I can tell, to these issues, is to ACF like mad towards the front of the build and focus everything on plain old Hulk Smash.

Schwalb saw this much the same way, and says so explicitly in the book: “So, what does one give a player bent on exploiting the more destructive aspect of Third Edition? Toys. You have to give these guys lots of toys. The concepts section provides players with the tools to get rid of the chaff. It allows players to drop skills or abilities in favour of expanding or highlighting other areas.”

Mechanically the character backgrounds sections pulls this off handsomely. Even if it’s just a free prerequisite feat that you don’t have to waste a precious feat slot on, you’ll likely find something useful, and a flavourful character concept to go with it.

Less successful are the prestige classes. The positives are that they’re all full BAB bar one or two, which is great. And they all hew pretty closely to their character concepts, which have very strong Barbarian flavours to them. But none of them advance rage uses or strength (bar the Devolutionary, which is a very specific character concept) which means you’re foregoing the main Barbarian ability, in place of a series of toys that may not be as impressive as they first appear at the levels they play at. I acknowledge the Quintessentials never set out to upgrade the power of a class, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a wise idea to hobble them either … and most of the prestige classes hobble, whether a little or a lot. (Again, there are exceptions and standouts.) And it’s such a shame, because the prestige classes, as said, are great ideas and much more interesting than bog-standard barbarian.

But the book does recover when it comes to feats and equipment. There’s nothing world-destroyingly powerful, but nothing that’s really, truly dreadful. And as said there’s sorely-needed details for struggling DMs about how to rule the way characters get on in the wilds. All up, I’d rate this one a 2.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: All the Quintessentials I’ve looked at thus far shine like new pennies in the area of character concepts, and this one is no different. It wasn’t until I was going through the first thirty pages that I realised how narrow I’d allowed my mental picture of a Barbarian to go: this book leans heavily into any number of different character tropes we associate with the barbarian, and there is a strong flavour of Robert E. Howard and other pulp writers running through the whole thing. This was deliberate and it’s pulled off beautifully, exploring the concept of the barbarian as thoroughly as the monk was explored in Quintessential Monk. I’d say Schwalb even added a third dimension to the concept by hooking up both character background and regional background and technology level as things that can influence the creation of the barbarian. He goes through all manner of different, more primitive armours, and even contains a special section on barbarian hordes, which plays with how the (broken) Leadership feat functions when summoning a horde of angels barbarians. It’s a really good tour of the barbarian concept and really puts some flavour back in the idea, which is why I give this one 3/4.

On presentation: Standard Mongoose Publishing format. Index is included which is nice. Give this one a 1/2.

Total: 6.5/10.


Next Time: Tome of Horrors (Revised), Necromancer Games.

[Kalkra]

I pity the DM who has to decide if the eldritch horrors attacking the party are male or not.

On a more serious note, IIRC one of the Q. Barbarians had a feat that gives +10 movement speed and can be taken multiple times. I thought it was the first one, but I could be wrong. Regardless, while movement speed isn't particularly useful, it's notable for making Mirror Move the best spell for flat bonuses to movement speed.

[Saintheart]

Tome of Horrors (Revised), Necromancer Games

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Summary
In essence, this is a book of monsters. But with a distinct bias: it weighs heavily on converting old first edition monsters into third edition rules, usually ones that WOTC overlooked when producing splatbooks with laxative regularity. The book features 300 monsters converted from D&D First Edition sources, 25 from other Necromancer Games products, and 100 original creations.

Date of Publication and Page Count
2005, 450 pages. As a reaction to D&D 3.5, this book was revised, lengthened, and the layout redone. Necromancer Games went defunct in 2010 when the two founders Clark Peterson and Bill Webb split up to start separate games publishers: Legendary Games and Frog God Games, respectively. (No, not that Legendary Games. This one went bust a couple of years later because Peterson had other stuff to focus on, namely being an actual judge in a court.) Frog God Games bought out Necromancer in 2012, and this book – the first volume – is still available on large market RPG websites. (Frog God Games actually stocks a compendium volume that has parts 1, 2, and 3 in one book. Also, this edition is not to be confused with the same book from Frog God Games which was produced for fifth edition.)

Necromancer Games’ slogan was “Third Edition Rules, First Edition Feel”, which at least gives us some sense of what they were aiming at, and given the book is essentially a large wad of monsters converted from first edition D&D, well, at least they headed out in that direction. The lead author for this volume, Scott Greene, has a short-ish history with RPG games though he doesn’t seem to be writing at the moment. When first released, Monte Cook’s quote – lovingly reproduced in the foreword to the book – was that “ If a role playing game is a gun, then a monster book is the ammunition. If that’s the case, then Tome of Horrors is a case of hollow point, explosive shells.” Okay then.


Notable Features
Al-Mi’raj (monster): IT’S A UNICORN BUNNY! And likely to tickle you to death with its 1d4-2 gore attack. Has SR 16, can blink at will, but shame on you if your soul ever grows so black and cynical as to even contemplate killing a cute little blinking rabbit with green fur and a gold horn on purpose, especially one at CR 1.
Amphisbaena (monster): “An amphisbaena moves on land by grasping one of its necks with its other head and rolling across the ground like a hoop.” The amphisbaena was actually a mythical Greek creature, and under D&D is basically a poisonous two-headed snake but they could’ve left the hoop snake joke out of it.
Apparition: (monster): Basically like your average undead … except it can convince you you’re strangling (DC 18 Will save) and if you believe it, you die of fright from heart failure (DC 17 Fort save).
Greater Basilisk: (monster): Well, the basilisk was already an annoying bugger to fight, but this one introduces halitosis. Any creature directly in front of a Greater Basilisk takes 2d4 CON damage every round they stay in the area (DC 19 Fort save). And it still has a poison attack that does 1d4 CON as well, at the same saving throw.
Bleeding Horror (template): Main interesting ability of this creature is that when it hits with a claw attack, get heals hit points equal to the damage dealt, which really vampires should have gotten in the SRD, and if you hit with both claw attacks, you do 1d4+2 CON damage, which is kind of brutal.
Bog Beast (monster): Basically a low-er level sasquatch or maybe a Grendel, the main interest is that for some insane reason you can run it as a PC. For this you’ve got Large size out the starting blocks, +10 STR, +8 CON, -6 INT, +2 WIS, -2 CHA, darkvision, +5 natural armor bonus, Scent , a rend and Disease attack, none of which are very formidable. Pretty steep costs though: 5 racial hit dice and LA +3.
Boggart (monster): Really interesting “larval” form of the much-dreaded Will o’ the Wisp. Immune to magic, has invisibility, has confusion, electrical attack, and has an alternative form as a will o’ the wisp. It also has a feature similar to the Dusk Giant’s Cannibalize (Ex) quality in that it can advance its own hit dice depending on how many humanoid corpses it eats. If it hits 9 HD, it immediately becomes a will o’ the wisp.
Buckawn (monster): Main attack method is via the poison they use on their daggers or darts: Moonseed berries, contact or ingested, Fort DC 18, Initial damage is 3d6 CON. Combined with at-will invisibility and 1/day entangle and insect plague, and SR 12 and DR 5/cold iron, then even allowing for only 3 hp I wouldn’t necessarily call this CR 2 – especially when they don’t show up in less than 2-4 at a time.
Caryatid Column (monster): CR 3? Really? It’s an animated stone column with construct traits that is immune to any spell that allows SR, DR 5/-, and imposes Fort DC 12 checks on any weapon – magical or nonmagical – to shatter when you hit it!
Cave Cricket (monster): Good for annoying your players. No real offensive capacity, but creatures within 20 feet of one of these can’t be heard unless they scream. Spellcasters have to concentrate to cast in the area. Chirping increases the chance of wandering monsters by 30%.
Cave Fisher (monster): Well, I do remember Drizzt fighting one of these. Not bad for a low-level party: at least it doesn’t rely on grapple checks to reel partymembers in on its filament, and takes not-low Escape Artist or STR checks to break free.
Crypt Thing/Crypt Guardian (monster): The Crypt Thing is your average undead guardian of a tomb, with the added ability once per day to tell everything in a 50 foot radius to sod off. All right, all right: everything in a 50 foot radius gets teleported in a random direction (1d10x100 feet, including up or down in 3 directions.) The Crypt Guardian, meanwhile, can, once per day, turn everyone invisible and paralyzed … for up to 2d4 days.
Disenchanter (monster): You think throwing Rust Monsters at your party makes you an Edgelord DM? Try this one, which basically is a camel with an elephant’s snout, and when it hits with the snout, it drains one magic item carried or worn by the target (determined randomly by the DM.) The item loses all magical properties it possesses.
Dracolisk (monster): Great, let’s make a dragon that has a gaze weapon as well as a breath weapon.
Faerie Dragon (monster): Awwww. A little dragon with butterfly wings. That said, the most interesting feature is that it has decent chances of replicating arcane or divine spells with a caster level equal to double its HD. Faerie dragons come with 2 HD naturally, but if advanced to 6 HD they replicate spells as a 12th level caster. No limits on the number of spells that can be cast per day.
Mist Dragon (monster): Hey, let’s give a dragon a gaseous form from which it can still cast spells, even if it can’t physically attack!
Drelb (monster): Extraplanar outsider from the Negative Energy Plane. Chief ability is that when it hits with its incorporeal touch attack, the creature drops whatever it’s holding and falls prone shivering for 1 round. NO SAVE. Let’s leave aside it has another ability to render the target flat-footed which requires a Will save to overcome at DC 20.
Dust Digger (monster): Like an ant lion (also in this volume) but better, because it can render a target automatically grappled if you walk on top of it, and then it can Swallow Whole on Medium creatures.
Time Elemental (monster): The lower-end elementals are maybe not that bad, but the Royal and Noble Elementals can pull Time Stop once a day, never caught flat-footed or flanked, immune to time-related magic, have spell resistance, can pull in other manifestations of itself from other dimensions to assist with attacks, can age a character up or down, and pull greater teleports.
Flail Snail (monster): Main item of interest is its Warp Magic ability: cast a spell on it, and there’s an 80% chance it’s not affected and something horrible happens like the spell misfiring and screwjobbing the caster or one of his buddies.
FLUMPH (monster): YES IT’S HERE.
Groaning Spirit (monster): Similar to a banshee, but it also makes undead flee, and a Dispel Evil spell outright kills it if it fails its save.
Haunt (monster): Undead that possesses people and then kills them.
Magnesium Spirit (monster): Does bright light flash damage, can give you negative levels, and also possess you. Really interesting!
Skeleton Warrior (template): Goes on any humanoid creature. Turn Immune, DR 10/magic and bludgeoning, Darkvision, SR 15 + HD. Cool stuff.
Spectral Troll (template): Now, I remember these pains-in-the-@$$ all too well. Here’s the template for making one: Corrupting Touch, ethereal, rejuvenation, turn resistance, and vanish in direct sunlight.
Vampire Rose (monster): Like it says, it’s a rose bush that sucks your blood out. Nice one at CR 3.
Wolf-in-Sheep’s-Clothing (monster): Yep, the good old “Furry rabbit prey sitting on carnivorous log” monster. CR 9 for a creature with a Grapple of +9 is way over the top when the grapple is its primary attack strategy.
Witherweed (monster): Interesting defence mechanism in that if you hit it with a [fire] attack, it creates a cloud of poisonous smoke that fills a 20 foot radius around you. DC 20 check to spot it, this is a good one for plains monsters.
Wizard’s Shackle (monster): CR 1/8 that basically drains magic from an arcane spellcaster’s mind. Would be more dangerous if it could move faster than 5 feet at a time, but the Hide +15 check is not too damn bad to scare the hell out of the smug Tier 1 caster now and then.
Giant Hamster (animal): Go for the eyes, Boo, GO FOR THE EYES!!!! Yes, all right, I know he was a miniature giant space hamster you bloody pedants…

Dreadful Features
Bhuta (monster): Love the idea of a death grip on an undead that prevents the creature in its grasp from casting spells or speaking, and doing automatic damage once it grips, but for a CR 6 rating I’d hope for a better Grapple check than +5 combined with STR 16, especially with an AC of 15.
Belabra (monster: the floating forest jellyfish, and once again the disappointing combination of grappling as the primary mode of attack with a +3 BAB and +5 Grapple modifier. Somewhat interesting feature that if you hit it, you wear acidic blood and get half-blinded and lose DEX bonus to AC, but I still query the CR 3 rating.
Cat Lord (monster): Love the concept: a lord of all cats, there is only one at any time, who shows up in either panther or human form, and he can summon any number of them, including weretigers. Gets improved invisibility at will, greater teleport, haste, etc., at various times. DR 20/magic and cold iron, SR 28, so on. I’d probably be more impressed if, despite his +19 BAB, he did more than 2 claw attacks of 1d6+7 damage for a CR 15 creature.
Clockwork Titan (monster): I mean, I don’t have a problem with the concept, but I think CR 4 might be just slightly low for a creature that has 68 hp, construct traits, 10 foot reach, and a +12 slam attack that does 2d6+8 on a hit.
Dragonfish (monster): Man those dragon types believe in spreading the love far and wide don’t they?
Frost Man (monster): I know the Frostburn Frost Folk when I see it.
Asswere (monster): A kind of were-donkey, but therianthropes are not lycanthropes – different template altogether. Its main power is to bray and cause a confusion effect accordingly.

Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
GM, obviously. It’s a bestiary.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
Special Note of Disclaimer +1, +3 vs. Oldbies: I was a relative latecomer to D&D. I played stuff like Pool of Radiance and Baldur’s Gate 2, and read the earlier novels like Darkwalker on Moonshae or The Crystal Shard, but I didn’t really get into the hobby until third edition. So I do feel like the kid who accompanies his parents to a Rolling Stones concert and doesn’t quite get why the olds are on their feet cheering the moment the cowbell starts and Keith Richards hits the first G note of Honky Tonk Women. Clark Peterson’s introduction to the book bewails how there were so many missing creatures from the Monster Manuals that didn’t survive the transition from earlier editions, so I’m assuming they were aiming for a nostalgic audience first. I therefore am probably not the best qualified guy to be able to assess whether the monsters provide a first edition feel on third edition mechanics beyond my vague memories of random encounters generated by the computer on Pool of Radiance which featured a good thirty, forty kobolds against a level 4 or 5 party, or look on in horror as the paper version of that adventure – FRCS1: Ruins of Adventure – throws 15 orcs and 35 kobolds at a level 1 party. I can only go on the concepts as provided against the experiences I’ve had in third edition, and whether they work. So if you do detect a sudden gushing over something you’ve known was in D&D for decades, well, what can I say: discovery’s a beautiful thing.

On mechanics: Look, most of the mechanics are actually fairly familiar, but there were a number of creatures that actually did do something different with their abilities, it’s not all just hitpoint or CON damage or the like. However, the most irritating part for me was the failure to appreciate how bad Grapple is. If, necessarily, you have to avoid an AoO and then succeed on an opposed grapple check to actually come to grips with an opponent, then you would expect decent numbers accordingly. Very few such creatures in this thing had that. The notable exceptions seemed to shunt right around grapple full stop. And I thought a fair number of the CR assessments were way off target, whether too low or too high. But then if you’ve been DMing for a while you’ve been eyeballing CR for a long time anyway. All up, call this a 2.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: Really it’s a mixed bag. Some of these creatures I already knew, but it’s not really like you’re getting something truly new, you’re getting a translation of an older creature into third edition formatting. That said, some of the concepts are … well, interesting, and I’m glad they didn’t shy away from some of the more silly stuff like the Flumph or the Wolf-In-Sheep’s-Clothing. There’s a couple of nuggets here which are interesting, buuuut ultimately I have to ask myself whether they’re doing much that’s new or exciting with it, and the answer’s, well, mostly ‘No’, with a decent number of notable exceptions, notably the whole hazards section, which is pretty darn good. Call this a 2.5/4, around the quality of a WOTC book. If you’re a nostalgic for early editions and really want to bring those creatures into third, call it half a point higher.

On presentation: Flat out alphabetical listing, no Dragon, Blue; Dragon, Brass… Each entry specifically credits its source where drawn from an earlier edition, so you can pick up where each one came from. Layout generally good, albeit black and white throughout. 1/2 here.


Total: 6/10.


Next Time: Dynasties and Demagogues – The Sourcebook of Political Intrigue, Atlas Games

[Kalkra]

I too have relatively little experience with 1st edition AD&D, but if the old Rogue-likes were any indication there was a lot more maiming of characters and ruining of equipment. If 1st edition was like those, I don't know how it would be doable, what with save scumming not being possible in a tabletop game.

Also, are Faerie Dragons playable?

[Saintheart]

Also, are Faerie Dragons playable?

Afraid not, no. Straight monster, no LA.

[Troacctid]

Flumphs did eventually make it into 3.5, but I guess this book came out before then.

[Thurbane]

Tome of Horrors is probably my fave 3rd party 3E book. As someone who's played since 1E, it's a great source for older monsters that otherwise never got official updates.

[Fizban]

Al-Mi’raj (monster): IT’S A UNICORN BUNNY! And likely to tickle you to death with its 1d4-2 gore attack. Has SR 16, can blink at will, but shame on you if your soul ever grows so black and cynical as to even contemplate killing a cute little blinking rabbit with green fur and a gold horn on purpose, especially one at CR 1.

These are also a mythological beast, but I'll always know them as the main random encounter for the cave out of the first area of Dragon Quest III. Not as bad as the giant millipede Caterpillars, but capable of showing up in large mobs spamming sleep spells and chances of high damage rolls. A classic.

Bleeding Horror (template): Main interesting ability of this creature is that when it hits with a claw attack, get heals hit points equal to the damage dealt, which really vampires should have gotten in the SRD, and if you hit with both claw attacks, you do 1d4+2 CON damage, which is kind of brutal.

I have to disagree on that concept- healing damage equal to that of basic weapon attacks, when the game's initial expectation is basic weapon attacks, is a pretty bad idea. Especially on monsters immune to sneak attack, especially on templates that mean the DM is building and thus optimizing the monster without an official benchmark. I'm pretty sure fast healing/regeneration values were a lot higher in 3.0 and were reduced because having your entire round of effort negated automatically is a major feel bad- something that heals all its melee damage is likely to meet or exceed those old values.

Greater Basilisk: (monster): Well, the basilisk was already an annoying bugger to fight, but this one introduces halitosis. Any creature directly in front of a Greater Basilisk takes 2d4 CON damage every round they stay in the area (DC 19 Fort save). And it still has a poison attack that does 1d4 CON as well, at the same saving throw.

Sounds like they drew on whatever part of the myth resulted in the poison breath of the MM1 "Gorgon," pretty sure all the petrifying montsers draw from a tangle of criss-crossed/re-translated/etc stories.

Caryatid Column (monster): CR 3? Really? It’s an animated stone column with construct traits that is immune to any spell that allows SR, DR 5/-, and imposes Fort DC 12 checks on any weapon – magical or nonmagical – to shatter when you hit it!

To be fair, 3rd is one of the last levels you can be fairly sure the party is still using non-magical weapons, so if you're going to have that ability matter, it does need to land that low. Adding DR 5/- on top isn't a great idea though.

Disenchanter (monster): You think throwing Rust Monsters at your party makes you an Edgelord DM? Try this one, which basically is a camel with an elephant’s snout, and when it hits with the snout, it drains one magic item carried or worn by the target (determined randomly by the DM.) The item loses all magical properties it possesses.

This showed up in Fiend Folio (along with the Caryatid Column), didn't get it there, don't get it here. Camel monster from myths of regions that used camels? Sure. Said monster eating magic? Don't get it.

Mist Dragon (monster): Hey, let’s give a dragon a gaseous form from which it can still cast spells, even if it can’t physically attack!

Excellent, now it has no natural armor! Gaseous Form was maybe a little scary in 3.0 when it gave DR 20/magic, but in 3.5 it's only 10, and either way it gives no protection against magic or magic weapons, and slows you to a crawl unless you've got a special version that doesn't.

I wonder if this Mist Dragon is any better than the others- the iconic scene at the start of Final Fantasy 4 demands a search for Mist Dragons, but the faerun one is terrible (slime breath? ugh).

Clockwork Titan (monster): I mean, I don’t have a problem with the concept, but I think CR 4 might be just slightly low for a creature that has 68 hp, construct traits, 10 foot reach, and a +12 slam attack that does 2d6+8 on a hit.

Dire Wolf has 45hp +11/d8+10 at CR 3. Brown Bear has 51 hp and more than twice that damage at CR 4. Minotaur has the reach at CR 4, less hit points, but powerful charge and two attacks. Aside from the immunities this monster is sounding on par with major monster, and basic construct/undead immunities aren't really enough to take a huge hit in practice, whatever Savage Species might say about it.

Next Time: Dynasties and Demagogues – The Sourcebook of Political Intrigue, Atlas Games

Do let us know if it has a full-party integrated social skill system.

[Miss Disaster]

Just to note, there's a 3-page errata PDF for Tome of Horrors 1 (Revised). And it includes some of the monsters talked about in this thread. Ex. - Al-mi’raj, Caryatid Column, etc.

Also, there's also a ToH 2 and ToH 3 books for 3.5. Pathfinder version of ToH came in 4 book along with various Web Enhancement and errata files.

[Saintheart]

Dynasties and Demagogues - The Sourcebook of Political Intrigue, Atlas Games

Spoiler

Show

Summary

Date of Publication and Page Count
March 2003, 160 pages, thus, just before 3.5 was issued that same year. Chris Aylott, the author, is still around, though this book looks to have been one of his earlier efforts. He was actually a game store owner when he wrote this. However, he seems to have moved into board game design full time, and maintains a blog over here: http://chrisaylott.com/ Atlas Games is also still active: they seem pretty focused on Ars Magica as their main product of choice (the discussion forum attached to their website actually doesn’t have a single D&D campaign in sight – quite the rarity) but they still sell this book, albeit only in PDF format. It’s also available on large RPG market websites. The book got the 2003 ENnie Gold Medal for Best Rules Supplement. That said, and entirely speculating, but my guess would be that political intrigue was mostly untouched territory when this book first came out – Game of Thrones hadn’t really taken off in the public consciousness until the TV series came out, so this probably came across as a lot newer and more groundbreaking than it now appears with 20 years in the rear vision mirror.

Notable Features
Demagogue 1-5 (prestige class): It might not advance bardic music, but the abilities are not bad for combat, let alone other situations. At third level, when ‘physically threatened’, as a full-round action, make an Intimidate/Diplomacy/Perform (Oratory) DC 15 check. If successful, the audience (as little as one) has to make a Will save against the check result in order to attack the demagogue, i.e. it’s a sort of Sanctuary effect. Also at third level, if you talk for 2 rounds, and make a Perform (Oratory) check at DC 20, the audience automatically succeeds on skill checks to help one another in cooperative efforts and at attack rolls for aid another combat actions (not to mention that the Aid Another benefit is a +4 instead of +2. This effect lasts one hour per class level. Fourth level, get Leadership if you didn’t already have it. At fifth level, the Demagogue can charm a person so thoroughly that only magic in the order of Miracle, Wish, Greater Restoration, or Limited Wish can break the alliance that person has with the demagogue. Did I mention all this stuff is available from about character level 3?
Information Mage (prestige class): 10/10 casting. A few random information-y spells, identify once per day as a spell-like ability, but the strongest ability is probably the two bonus feats and that the XP cost of creating an item can be halved by doubling the gp cost. Also able to use a self-created item such as a rod, wand, stave, scroll, and so on, without actually taking it in hand or producing it. This ability comes up at ninth level.
Bodyguard 1-3 (prestige class): If you ever wanted to play Kevin Costner in a party with Whitney Houston, now’s your chance. Look, it’s something for the knuckle-draggers to do while the high INT and CHA types wander around stealing the limelight. Basically, at third level you can switch your Reflex save with that of your Principal (i.e. the person you’re guarding), or make a Reflex save to take an attack in place of your Principal. Probably of most use for NPC Rogues on Big Bads, since you can utilise stuff like Improved Evasion if you switch out for your Principal. Also grants Uncanny Dodge for what it’s worth.
Spellsense (Sor/Wiz 5 spell): As detect scrying, but really applied to magic cast upon you or “in your presence”. Allows a Spellcraft check to identify the spell (DC 15+spell level) as a free action, lasts 12 hours. If this applies to spells benefiting from Eschew Materials, Still Spell, and/or Silent Spell, it’s a slight improvement on the standard skill use.
Invisible Blade (weapon quality): For a +1 bonus, get a +2 to your attack rolls. The blade of your weapon is invisible … but it doesn’t deny the opponent their DEX bonus to AC.


Dreadful Features
Brothers in Arms (feat): Whenever a character in your army or other organised or hierarchical unit must make a Will save, you may choose to make the save for that character. Or multiple characters, if you can see or hear each other. If you succeed on the save, everyone is considered to have succeeded. If you fail, every character that shared the save is considered to have failed. Not bad, give this to the party mage or cleric and make your beatsticks a bit more resistant to Charm-blasting magic. The author does give the munchkin player the hairy eyeball when he says that most adventuring parties don’t qualify as units which can actually use this feat, but let’s face it, this isn’t that hard to get around. But then we’ve got this howler: “This can cause spells and other effects that would normally affect one person to affect an entire group, but that’s brotherhood for you.” Need I remind you that you can always voluntarily fail Will saves … say, for example, the Will save of a beneficial spell cast at you, which then affects everybody. Look, it’s not a bad idea, but as worded, holy ****, I like Dire Straits too, but not this much.
Patronage (feat): Once per character level – as in, you can only use it once during the whole time you are of a given character level – you can get a +10 to a single Diplomacy, Intimidate, or Gather Information check. This is a real feat, this will actually occupy one of your seven default slots.
Skilled Researcher (feat): Oh dear. “Upon taking this feat, choose any Knowledge skill and add 2 ranks to it.” No mention of maximum skill ranks, it’s not a +2 to the check, it’s a flat-out 2 ranks. Dark Chaos Shuffle this one out and back again presumably leaving the skill ranks intact.
Team Player (feat): This is probably the simplest, most objective, least onerous, and therefore the most ab/useable of the Personality Feats that this book contains. Personality Feats basically attempt to force people to roleplay. Give up one of your precious feat slots, go and behave like the personality feat says you should, and you get an Action Point. However, it’s not SRD Action Points. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/ad...tionPoints.htm These Action Points can only be picked up once per session and can only be used to for two things: adding a measly d6 or two to a roll … or cashed in to get extra experience points. Said extra XP being as if the entire party had faced an encounter with a level equal to the average level of the party. (As a reminder, this is the sort of encounter that the DMG calls ‘challenging’, i.e. 50% of the encounters you should face during the adventure.) If nothing else that’s not a bad XP bank for item creation if needed, and multiple characters with the same feat obviously can stack the XP. This is one handy way of speeding up character progression without having to take the risk of fighting anything or consuming resources. And Team Player as said is the easiest one to satisfy because it hardly requires any DM interference judgment about whether your actions fits your feat’s conditions. By RAW, you perform an ‘aid another’ action to assist a party member with a skill check or attack roll, you pick up an Action Point.
Every other damn feat: +2s, +2s, +2s everywhere to Bluff, Diplomacy, blah, blah, blah. Oh hey once a session you can do a take 10 on one of these.
Appraise (new skill use): I’m sorry, but in a sourcebook designed to create campaigns about political intrigue, where uncertainty or mystery about a character’s motives, positions, or a proposition’s consequences are potent generators of suspense, this is just a stupid idea. A DC 20 Appraise check allows you to evaluate the worth of abstract valuables like trade offers, treaties, and political deals. If you succeed, “the GM must point out all significant benefits of the deal or offer, and the costs or consequences that would result from your character agreeing to it. If there is a hidden clause or consequence that your character might regret later, the GM must inform you of it. The GM must tell you whether this is a “good deal” for your character.” I mean, good grief, take it out of the political arena and to the archetypical ‘deal with a genie/devil’ where the soul’s on the line: this sort of ability sucks all the marrow out of the scene, removes all the tension. Good grief, how much intrigue is there in a scene where you can figure out whether Luciano Borgia is offering you a good deal or not based on your gem-peeking modifier?



Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
I’d say it’s mostly for GMs.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics:

Do let us know if it has a full-party integrated social skill system.

You asked, I looked. Short answer’s no. It might not go downhill from there, but neither does it ascend to great heights.

Let me excessively pay out on the book’s flaws first, so then I can get to the good parts. There is a lack of system mastery at hand in this book. Or more generously, an eye-gouging naivete. Or, maybe, inexperienced playtesters (this book had fourteen of them). Or, maybe, a lack of someone to say “But how is the DM meant to use this book with the 3.5 system as written?”

The book fails to fully appreciate how magic nukes the political intrigue campaign, based as it is on influence, persuasion, knowing stuff, and all those other non-stabby things. I say fully because some SRD spells are mentioned as maybe having some use in a political campaign: Fly, (get your cardboard cutout to a rally) Charm person, dominate person (make friends and convert rivals into allies). “Many politicians rely on augury and other divination spells to tell them how the public will react to their decisions.” Really? That’s the limit of the effect you think a nosy cleric or a Divine Oracle might have on a political campaign? And most crucially missing from the list of spells that might, kinda, maybe affect this sort of campaign, insanely conspicuous by its absence? Glibness. Not a word. None. And yes, I mean that literally. The word ‘glibness’ does not appear in this volume at all. The book blithely traipses into this space with all the guileless innocence of a child putting his scale-model HMS Victory into the path of an oncoming typhoon. (EDIT: And to be fair, one wouldn't really expect it to since Glibness did not exist as a spell until 3.5, which is to say, well after this book had come out. There were potions of glibness - which also don't get a mention here, and really should - but that's a significant point and illustration that you have to take into account the year of publication.)

There is no section in the book where the writer faces you squarely and says “Look. Clerics, mages, and bards can trivialise all sorts of challenges in this type of campaign, so if you’re going to run with this, get prepared for a lot of antimagic fields, Zones of Truth, Scrying, Detecting Scrying, Mind Blank, and stuff like that. Or nerf magic, either outright by running a low-magic setting or just saying ‘Glibness has not been discovered and never will be’ or similar. Or be prepared to have really hard conversations with people who want to run a Diplomancer build ... especially if the reason they built a Diplomancer is because it’s a political intrigue campaign.” If we’re aiming this book at the type of DM who wants to try something a bit different from a bog standard campaign, doesn’t have a massive mastery over what magic can do, and is running the game for people Who Studied (or for grognards), then it needs to have this heart-to-heart with the reader. Which it can’t, because it’s written 20 years ago, and we’ve got the benefit of said 20 years to see how this sort of thing can come unglued.

Also conspicuous by its absence: no discussion about the brokenness of Leadership combined with a decent dose of downtime, which political campaigns often have. To be fair, this sin is common; as if the entirety of splatbook publishers from around 2001 – 2010 forgot how the feat worked, or never actually played with it on the intent of seeing what you could break with it. And yes, the feat blithely appears in prestige classes here and there in this book too.

Next problem is that it never quite confronts the fact a political intrigue campaign generally involves minimal hitting people in the face. The rogue is about the only non-spellcasting guy who’s going to be mildly useful more than 2% of such adventures for his information gathering capacities … and then usually in awkward solo segments of the game trying to break into apartments, rolling to find a Fireball trap, failing, dying, and the rest of the party gets to stand around waiting for him to never show up again.

Oh, the book recognises the problem. It even goes through all the core classes one by one and tries to eke out some ideas for involving the hippie druid in a Game of Borgias or the utterly-useless ranger (simplest band aid? Use urban druid and urban ranger variants) but there seems to be an unsaid admission here that a political campaign involving anyone who’s not a spellcaster of some kind is going to require probably more work than it’s worth. At the very least, it’s going to involve a lot of pandering to martials in the form of encounters tailored to their abilities, (even moreso than a standard D&D campaign, ha-ha). Worse still is the suggestion to bring investigation elements into the adventure. Call me cynical, but nobody knows how to run an engaging or gripping investigation sequence in a D&D adventure. “Investigation sequence” in the average campaign is a tedious rolling sequence of: We’re looking for the Macguffin -> Is it here -> Search Roll -> No -> How about now, is it here? -> Search Roll -> No -> Can we take up this interesting lead we found over here? -> It doesn’t pan out (I didn’t think of you doing that and I’ve got no idea how to handle that inventive line of inquiry which could obviate half the session), return to the crime scene -> Is it here -> Search Roll -> Yes, it’s getting close to wrap-up time, the yoga class has the room at 2 -> Thank ****ing god…

Anyway, point being: again the author doesn’t level with you and say “You know what? If you’re going to run a political intrigue campaign, have the balls to ban fighters and martials of all kinds and just rely on hirelings for the wetwork. It’s better for your sanity, minimises your preparation, and doesn’t leave your poor suffering players bored out of their skulls while the Tyrant Queen of Naboo tells us she will absolutely choose a course of action that will lead her nosepicking peasant people to war.”

So much for the bad. As for the good, well, it does set up a combat-like system for different types of political debates. To someone who’s perused Green Ronin’s A Song of Ice and Fire rules for intrigue these will come across as relatively simple, but as said it is not dissimilar from combat: there are rounds, there is initiative, there’s a political defense score like AC, hitpoints are political points, attacks can be made with certain maneuvers (certain ones require different skills from the Bluff/Diplomacy/Perform/Intimidate quartet) and damage done until one person is defeated (or one of the other victory conditions arises). One interesting element in it is that the effectiveness of a given maneuver is made stronger or weaker depending on what the opponent’s previous maneuver was. As combat systems go it’s relatively simple but has a certain amount of depth.

It also contains a system for running elections, which is also given some abstract rules and covers the small-scale right up to the large. This one is more skill-based and brings in the idea of influencing points, again, not too heavy, not too simple either. I can see this being useful if you’re in that sort of campaign, but again it doesn’t do a lot for the martials or the others. All up, call this a 1.5/4.

On concepts and fluff: This is where the book shines, both on background fluff and guidance to the DM.

One thing regular D&D tends to be short on is any sort of meaty thought about how the politics or governments of other races work. That requires a long, hard think about what the driving forces are for those societies and how they interact with other species. The strongest section of the book is the short dive it does into how a sample dwarven government might operate and how a sample elven government might operate. The elven one is an eye-opener which basically takes the idea that elves, with long lifespans and no chaotic tendencies, can be seriously dangerous political schemers. The elves’ Empire of the Owls arose when, centuries ago, humans raised a great empire that fell when they overworked the land, emptied the fisheries, destroyed the forest, and the elves then intervened to save the starving masses. And thus rose to rule. That’s the legend. The truth is very different: initially driven back by human onslaught, the elves changed tactics and poisoned the land, ruined crops, encouraged barbarity. Once the human lands were at the point of collapse, they returned as welcome saviours and gave the humans enough help to survive … in return for the right to rule.

The book also surveys various different forms of government – from democracy to feudalism to empire to imperialism, and finally, theocracy and magocracy – with good indications about the pros and cons in an adventure for using that type of government. It’s not really that helpful for players, but for those DMs who feel they have to sink themselves into a setting to really be able to adjudicate or build adventures on it, this is good stuff to consider.

As said, the book also provides pretty good guidance to DMs for how to actually put a political intrigue adventure together from the first concept to the finished adventure. It goes into a decent array of detail, down to villain motives and what their power bases are, what their edge is, and things of that description. It also provides rough structures for an adventure and even a campaign, maybe not down to CR, but enough to give a newbie DM at this sort of thing a head start. This one I give a 2.5.

On presentation: Black and white. Serif fonts. Not a bad layout, standard two-column akin to WOTC. Call this one a 1/2.


Total: 5/10.


Next Time: Mercenaries, Alderac Entertainment Group.

[Kalkra]

Perhaps the most common flaw I've found in 3rd-party books (and some splatbooks) is that they expect to play by the rules. I mean, if you're trying to make a good simulation of political intrigue, it makes sense to playtest it by engaging in political intrigue, but a lot of books don't ask "what if players ignored what they were supposed to do, and just took bits and pieces of the content presented in this book and combined it with other things in order to achieve the best results?"

You see this a lot with abilities which are potentially powerful, but have big penalties for failure. Played fairly, that's an interesting strategic/roleplaying decision. Played realistically, you're gonna make sure you never fail.

On an unrelated note, Demagogue seems tailor-made for sweatshops. (You see what I did there?)

[Fizban]

And most crucially missing from the list of spells that might, kinda, maybe affect this sort of campaign, insanely conspicuous by its absence? Glibness. Not a word. None. And yes, I mean that literally. The word ‘glibness’ does not appear in this volume at all. The book blithely traipses into this space with all the guileless innocence of a child putting his scale-model HMS Victory into the path of an oncoming typhoon.

Might want to reconsider this one a bit- 3.0 book, but Glibness is not a 3.0 spell, it's 3.5.

3.0 Glibness existed only as the potion. A mere 500gp potion that still gave a ridiculous untyped +30 along with full immunity to truth-seeking magic rather than a mere Nondetection equivalent, but something you would need to pay for nontheless (and subject to any limits on magic item availability the DM might have). So rather than a glaring hole on PC class spell lists, it's a tiny little item entry you wouldn't find even if you did do a full accounting of PHB spells.

(And the completely open-ended nature of the "Bluff" skill is its own problem.)

Or be prepared to have really hard conversations with people who want to run a Diplomancer build ... especially if the reason they built a Diplomancer is because it’s a political intrigue campaign.”

To be fair, that's almost entirely a problem with the Diplomacy "system," which I'm pretty sure is almost entirely a problem with one idiot who wrote the "special" line in the 3.0 PHB*. Without that line, the 3.0 DMG's rules for influencing NPC attitudes only call for charisma checks, and the 3.0 Diplomacy skill specifically refers to those- the context might imply that you roll the skill, but the DMG would tell you otherwise. Only negotiations and diplomats explicitly roll Diplomacy, as opposed checks, which skilled NPCs can of course oppose. It is only in that last little "special" line, on the next page, that someone says "actually the NPC attitude system is untrained Diplomacy checks" that any/everything falls apart. And even then, the lack of mention of a skill in the DMG could still allow it to take "primary source" precedent for NPC reactions and remove that.

*Heck- "are generally untrained diplomacy checks?" So what, sometimes they are and sometimes they're not? Does the person writing this line even know what they're referencing?

3.5 of course fully inducted the problem and filled in references to the diplomacy skill and made it explicitly the direct arbiter of NPC reactions, and never took it back. But I have a suspicion that the whole thing traces back to one person making one change for clarity, not knowing what they actually did, and no one really thinking about it until after they'd pulled the trigger a dozen times and swore it was all completely initentional. The NPC attitude table works perfectly fine for PCs rolling raw Cha from Elite ability scores, no cha-boosting races, and no spells that can directly boost the check

Sure, it shows a lack of system mastery for this book's writer to fail to mention it, but I wouldn't paint it as being all that glaring. If you read the 3.0 DMG about NPC attitudes, it says absolutely nothing about a skill check, and points out that a careless word can sour relations instantly without rolling. If you read the 3.0 PHB, even if you notice it says that influencing attitudes is "normally an untrained skill check," it does not reveal that said skill check is anything different from the previous use of opposed skill checks, and anything that refers to the DMG gains the cloak of "oh if it's not being detailed here then the rules must be be solid enough elsewhere." In short, I think it's perfectly understandable that someone without the internet to tell them Diplomacy is busted, would not notice the problem. It's only putting both texts directly next to each other with the intent of breaking it, that the problem becomes visible at all in 3.0.

And WotC did little or no better in their 3.0. . . or 3.5 works either. They explicitly and directly broke the thing with the 3.5 PHB entry, no cross-referencing required. If this writer takes a knock for not noticing, the 3.5 editor should just be fired.

Of course all of that goes out the window if at any point the book does acknowledge Diplomacy skill vs NPC attitude table. Otherwise I would presume they thought that all Diplomacy checks were opposed negotiations, thus there is no reason to worry about a PC's skill: they still can't negotiate any further than the DM deems reasonable, and NPC Experts and Aristocrats can be just as good as them, there's not even any cheaty spells.

Also conspicuous by its absence: no discussion about the brokenness of Leadership combined with a decent dose of downtime, which political campaigns often have. To be fair, this sin is common; as if the entirety of splatbook publishers from around 2001 – 2010 forgot how the feat worked, or never actually played with it on the intent of seeing what you could break with it. And yes, the feat blithely appears in prestige classes here and there in this book too.

Could you briefly elaborate? You need quite a leadership score to get even a couple dozen followers, and anything they do in the world still has to go through the normal channels. Building things costs gp and land rights, equipping an army to fight costs gp, and even passively earning gp can immediately run into taxes and conflicts with the locals- while the amount of gp powerful people are expected to throw around is almost entirely dependant upon the DM, so the relative significance of that passive income might not even matter.

So much for the bad. As for the good, well, it does set up a combat-like system for different types of political debates. To someone who’s perused Green Ronin’s A Song of Ice and Fire rules for intrigue these will come across as relatively simple, but as said it is not dissimilar from combat: there are rounds, there is initiative, there’s a political defense score like AC, hitpoints are political points, attacks can be made with certain maneuvers (certain ones require different skills from the Bluff/Diplomacy/Perform/Intimidate quartet) and damage done until one person is defeated (or one of the other victory conditions arises). One interesting element in it is that the effectiveness of a given maneuver is made stronger or weaker depending on what the opponent’s previous maneuver was. As combat systems go it’s relatively simple but has a certain amount of depth.

Interesting. It does sound quite similar to one I read in. . . Quintessential Samurai? Which would have needed a ton of fleshing out. I guess if I want to read a system to adapt/simplify I should be looking at that Song of Ice and Fire one then.

Next Time: Mercenaries, Alderac Entertainment Group.

Ooh, that's one I've gone back to quite a few times. Some stuff I like the idea of, some stuff I've even pulled for reference, and one thing in particular I was hoping might finally be a good enough answer but instead made me give up and write my own. Will be interesting to see what catches your interest.

[Saintheart]

Perhaps the most common flaw I've found in 3rd-party books (and some splatbooks) is that they expect to play by the rules. I mean, if you're trying to make a good simulation of political intrigue, it makes sense to playtest it by engaging in political intrigue, but a lot of books don't ask "what if players ignored what they were supposed to do, and just took bits and pieces of the content presented in this book and combined it with other things in order to achieve the best results?"

You see this a lot with abilities which are potentially powerful, but have big penalties for failure. Played fairly, that's an interesting strategic/roleplaying decision. Played realistically, you're gonna make sure you never fail.

I think part of it comes from trying to work out which part of the crowd to pitch the game at: do you pitch it at the audience the original CR system was intended for (game store casuals, weekend warriors etc) or do you pitch it at more experienced players and DMs? To be fair, this one was also from the 3.0 days, so I'd cut them some slack on that, but I think a fair number of splatbooks take that approach because realistically they can't guarantee any other player base. But anyway, bad rules is bad rules.

Might want to reconsider this one a bit- 3.0 book, but Glibness is not a 3.0 spell, it's 3.5.

3.0 Glibness existed only as the potion. A mere 500gp potion that still gave a ridiculous untyped +30 along with full immunity to truth-seeking magic rather than a mere Nondetection equivalent, but something you would need to pay for nonetheless (and subject to any limits on magic item availability the DM might have). So rather than a glaring hole on PC class spell lists, it's a tiny little item entry you wouldn't find even if you did do a full accounting of PHB spells.

(And the completely open-ended nature of the "Bluff" skill is its own problem.)


To be fair, that's almost entirely a problem with the Diplomacy "system," which I'm pretty sure is almost entirely a problem with one idiot who wrote the "special" line in the 3.0 PHB*. Without that line, the 3.0 DMG's rules for influencing NPC attitudes only call for charisma checks, and the 3.0 Diplomacy skill specifically refers to those- the context might imply that you roll the skill, but the DMG would tell you otherwise. Only negotiations and diplomats explicitly roll Diplomacy, as opposed checks, which skilled NPCs can of course oppose. It is only in that last little "special" line, on the next page, that someone says "actually the NPC attitude system is untrained Diplomacy checks" that any/everything falls apart. And even then, the lack of mention of a skill in the DMG could still allow it to take "primary source" precedent for NPC reactions and remove that.

*Heck- "are generally untrained diplomacy checks?" So what, sometimes they are and sometimes they're not? Does the person writing this line even know what they're referencing?

3.5 of course fully inducted the problem and filled in references to the diplomacy skill and made it explicitly the direct arbiter of NPC reactions, and never took it back. But I have a suspicion that the whole thing traces back to one person making one change for clarity, not knowing what they actually did, and no one really thinking about it until after they'd pulled the trigger a dozen times and swore it was all completely initentional. The NPC attitude table works perfectly fine for PCs rolling raw Cha from Elite ability scores, no cha-boosting races, and no spells that can directly boost the check

Sure, it shows a lack of system mastery for this book's writer to fail to mention it, but I wouldn't paint it as being all that glaring. If you read the 3.0 DMG about NPC attitudes, it says absolutely nothing about a skill check, and points out that a careless word can sour relations instantly without rolling. If you read the 3.0 PHB, even if you notice it says that influencing attitudes is "normally an untrained skill check," it does not reveal that said skill check is anything different from the previous use of opposed skill checks, and anything that refers to the DMG gains the cloak of "oh if it's not being detailed here then the rules must be be solid enough elsewhere." In short, I think it's perfectly understandable that someone without the internet to tell them Diplomacy is busted, would not notice the problem. It's only putting both texts directly next to each other with the intent of breaking it, that the problem becomes visible at all in 3.0.

And WotC did little or no better in their 3.0. . . or 3.5 works either. They explicitly and directly broke the thing with the 3.5 PHB entry, no cross-referencing required. If this writer takes a knock for not noticing, the 3.5 editor should just be fired.

Of course all of that goes out the window if at any point the book does acknowledge Diplomacy skill vs NPC attitude table. Otherwise I would presume they thought that all Diplomacy checks were opposed negotiations, thus there is no reason to worry about a PC's skill: they still can't negotiate any further than the DM deems reasonable, and NPC Experts and Aristocrats can be just as good as them, there's not even any cheaty spells.

I'll go and make some adjustments when I've had a chance to look back over the book, but the comment on Glibness is fair and deserves a bit of an edit, certainly. I didn't realise Glibness as a spell was introduced into 3.5 as such.

[Fizban]

I'll go and make some adjustments when I've had a chance to look back over the book, but the comment on Glibness is fair and deserves a bit of an edit, certainly. I didn't realise Glibness as a spell was introduced into 3.5 as such.

I only did when I was looking at the 3.0 specific potions and realized that Glibness and Heroism were (what I call) Specific Potions, though of course I bring it up now whenever anything close to the subject comes up.

Neither spell existed in 3.0, but 3.5 got rid of potions that didn't duplicate spells, while conveniently dropping those two items and adding spell versions (and Greater Heroism as well). All part of my sort of piecemeal off and on digging into updated spells and mechanics to evaluate whether those changes were actually good or bad. Heroism/Greater gives ridiculous long lasting buffs? Used to cost gp and was only ever +2. Weirdly specific Bard spell that is the second primary problem with the Bluff skill? Well it used to be a wacky potion rather than a free class feature at least. The mentioned Diplomacy changes. Tons of spells and PrC features. Etc.

There are so many changes that are completely overlooked, or have been internalized to the point of forgetting the original, and the default attitude is so strongly on all updates being Good^TM, that it's pretty astounding just how many you can find which are with only a moment's consideration, completely arbitrary, capricious, or indeed just an obvious bad idea.