Nyambe -- what's it like in actual play?

The thread title pretty much says it all, but. . .

Does anyone here have experience running or playing in a Nyambe (or even partly Nyambe) campaign? How well does it work when actually used (i.e., in practise)? With what other books?

For those who are not familiar with the book's title, it was a kind of mythic-Africa themed d20 fantasy book put out by Atlas Games, in 2002. For whatever reasons, it always slipped past me, but now I have an opportunity to pick up a copy, on terms that are very appealing.

So, is it worth getting? And why/why not? What do you really like or dislike about the book's contents, and are its descriptions better than its game mechanics, or vice versa? How so?

Thanks in advance.

I got the book but never used it. I hadn't the opportunity. The additional rules (how classes fit, new classes, etc.) are okay, and there isn't too much of it. What I dislike about Nyambe, is that it's a vanilla African D&D setting, rather than something really different. There are elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, although tailored to the setting. Yet it's easy to rename or discard them altogether. Me, I would have rather used the Arcana Evolved races (and maybe some of its classes too) if I were to run this setting. My overall feel about it, is that it's okay, but you would have to customize and flavor the setting by yourself, otherwise it won't be truly exotic and interesting.

Running a Nyambe campaign's been on my to-do list for years. One thing I've heard anecdotally is that the Ancestral Vault supplement (which I don't have) is vital at higher levels, since it gives the players some decent defensive options.

Definately worth getting. It is a very rich and interesting campaign setting that you will never find a lack of information and further ideas for. It plays, IIRC, smooth and largely hiccup-free. It's based on 3.0, so it still has those 3.0 quirks, but it's a solid tome.

No gaming library would be complete without it!

I don't have the book here, so I can't get into specifics about how it was awesome, but it was awesome.

Thanks, KM (and others).

I ended up getting the book anyway (and I'm very glad I did), but I'm still curious to hear about any in-play experiences with Nyambe.

Also, any other books that really go well with it. . . Ancestral Vault, Huw? OK, anything else people recommend?

Aus_Snow said:

Also, any other books that really go well with it. . . Ancestral Vault, Huw? OK, anything else people recommend?

Click to expand...

I'd just heard it was vital. There's also the Dire Spirits adventure, which I know even less about.

I've played Dire Spirits and a homebrew adventure, and am about to embark on a more extended Nyambe-based campaign (the party will be composed of standard PH races and classes who are exploring Nyambe).

Thus far, I have really loved the flavor and the new monsters (although the statblocks may make John Cooper cry), and I like the modifiied races and base classes for the most part. The sei sorcerer may be a bit underpowered, being forced to choose some suboptimal spells, and not necessarily getting useful SLAs in return.

Most of the prestige classes have great flavor, but mechanically, they're kind of unsound. They get their own spell progressions, which work like the base classes', only at twice the pace. So in five levels of inyanga yensimbi, you get something like 10 levels of cleric spell progression. I find this really clumsy, lacking flavor, and most of all, really underpowered, at least until you catch up. I house rule most of the prestige classes to get +1 level of existing class, skipping a level here and there where needed for balance. A few prestige classes, like the mask maker, are too easy to qualify for. Nyambe also spins the bard, monk, and ranger out into prestige classes, which I think is a perfectly good idea, but I worry that they would be too weak in practice. I haven't had a chance to play them.

Dire Spirits is an OK adventure. I find it most useful not as an adventure per se, but as an example of how to design a Nyamban village (something that should have been in the main book).

Ancestral Vault is a decent supplement. It's a book of items, mostly magical, with some really flavorful stuff. The defensive item that Huw is talking about may be the fetishes, which increase your BAB only for purposes of the Sanguar feat. I don't like way they're priced out, but they are really useful for upping the otherwise anemic Dodge bonus you get from Sanguar. Of course, you can just house rule Sanguar instead.

www.nyambe.com is a fan site with some useful stuff. There's also a company out there called Too Many Goats (www.toomanygoats.com) with a bunch of adventures that have been announced, but not yet published.

We use the Nyambe stuff for characters that come from "Africa" in our COnan games, however to date, none of our adventures have been set there.

We had one person play a Darfarian cannibal Sei, for which we allowed him to choose spells from ANY spell list, just like a sorcerer. The player really liked the character and the content of the book.

I own the adventure. It is a "start at the town -head to the adventure" style of adventure, which makes it easy to run and start a campaign. It reminds me of Keep on the borderlands..in Africa.

jh

Thi is all very interesting. I've been think of picking this book up, and doing something similar for a Native America (circa 1491) setting. What do you like about it and why?

Thanks.