Crothian
First Post
Advanced Players Guide
I have always felt the need to make the game my own. That means adding my own little twist on thing, my own touches and tweaks to the rules to make the game serve how I want to play. This philosophy has helped making my personal games feel different from other peoples even if we happen to be using the same game system and setting. It goes beyond the habits of different GMs. Its small things added or subtracted from the game that increase the enjoyment of all. This is one of the reasons I really like game books filled with new option like the Advanced Players Guide.
The Advanced Players Guide is a book of options by Sword and Sorcery. They are of course best known for their Scarred Lands setting, though this particular book is not of that line. The book is hardbound and about two hundred pages in length. It is black white with good art and some great pieces by Udon Entertainment Corp. The Layout is very good, it is really easy to read, the tables are also well done. There is only a table of contents though and no index. So, finding things in the book can be a bit of a problem especially if one needs to find them fast.
Of course it is the rules that this book is really going to be judged on. I’ve broken that down by chapter to give a more accurate look of exactly what options one can find here.
The first chapter is Character Options. Here they have heroic merits and tragic flaws. The interesting thing is they are tied to attributes. So, if you happen to have a low attribute you can get merits for it and at the same time if your stats are too high you get flaws. The merits I found boring the flaws I found rich and fun. These are the types of things I think it would be great to work with the player to have the flaws really fit the character. There are plenty of options for each attribute and all of them add a lot of personality and role playing opportunity to the character. They are probably best served in campaigns that the attributes are not too high or else the amount of flaws a character has could easily become silly. There are also racial class modifiers that give a difference between classes dependant on races. These are small things like a +1 reflex save for adroit feet or treat charisma 2 points higher towards dwarves because of their nice beard. Over all I feel the flaws are the strength of this chapter, but the other pieces will be useful for people wanting this type of option.
The second chapter is Character Classes. These are new prestige classes and while d20 is defiantly not lacking in this area, it was refreshing reading over some very interesting ideas that really have not been explored yet. There is the Dilettante, a prestige class that needs to have 4 levels of separate classes and 20 skills with no more then 5 ranks in any. They can gain almost any class ability from the other classes. The Elementalist is pretty much what one would expect, the Gallowglass is the ultimate in armor wearing fighters, the Gemcaster is self explanatory, pit fighter is really cool and so much better then the Wizards version, sidestepper is a class the specializes in teleport like abilities it s great. Then there are elite prestige classes. Basically they are tougher classes to get into requiring 12 levels or higher. The Arcane warrior is pretty basic, Plant Master is cool, Rogue Hunter is also cool, Temporal Mage is possible one of the best takes on temporal magic I've read, and the Undead Bane is also good but basic
Next are epic levels. I was really happy to see someone finally give an alternate version of class levels higher then twenty. The XP progression slows down taking 30 thousand to go from 21st to 22nd for instance. Ranks, feats, attribute bonuses progress like pre 20th level. These only go up to 30th level so I feel they work very well since they don't have to scale to infinity and beyond. They only extend the core classes but do them like second edition High Level Book which I really liked. The one think they don't do that I would have liked is tenth level spells.
Then come the truly alternate rules in the third chapter called alternate combat rules. There are new rules for initiative, critical fumbles, complex fumbles, alternative combat rules like phased combat (it increases the uncertainty in battles), weapons speeds, armor damage, wound level system, and detailed critical hits. The options are all solid and for people looking for a different way to do these things, this is a good place to look.
The fourth chapter gives new arcane spell casting systems. There are systems for mana based spells, skill based spells, spell criticals, physical fatigue for casting spells, and a few other options. Again, this is a chapter filled with good options that will be just what someone is looking for.
Chapter five deals with variant magic. That is new core classes that are while dealing with magic are very different from the core classes found in the Players Handbook. These are not just variants of the core classes like many books offer. These classes are fully defined, rich with creativity and intelligence, and most importantly to me are unlike almost any other magic class I has seen. There is Aethercraft magic through science, Animism, Geomancy or ley line magic, Soulcrafting "art of personality theft and identity buglary", and each has its own spell lists amd new spells for the classes
And the last chapter deals with Castles and Keeps. This is a really cool system that works communities like characters. They have specific feats they can take to enhance the towns, their own ability scores to help define them, etc. Its a really cool idea and I wish I was running the type of game this could be used and meaningful. There’s rules for the places reputation, figuring out its wealth, government, philosophies...its one of the most innovative systems I've seen.
I have found this book to be more useful then Unearthed Arcana. Both are a mix of optional rules, but the ones found here I felt were better fit and easier to use. Ultimately though, it will vary from DM to DM on which book of options they prefer.
I have always felt the need to make the game my own. That means adding my own little twist on thing, my own touches and tweaks to the rules to make the game serve how I want to play. This philosophy has helped making my personal games feel different from other peoples even if we happen to be using the same game system and setting. It goes beyond the habits of different GMs. Its small things added or subtracted from the game that increase the enjoyment of all. This is one of the reasons I really like game books filled with new option like the Advanced Players Guide.
The Advanced Players Guide is a book of options by Sword and Sorcery. They are of course best known for their Scarred Lands setting, though this particular book is not of that line. The book is hardbound and about two hundred pages in length. It is black white with good art and some great pieces by Udon Entertainment Corp. The Layout is very good, it is really easy to read, the tables are also well done. There is only a table of contents though and no index. So, finding things in the book can be a bit of a problem especially if one needs to find them fast.
Of course it is the rules that this book is really going to be judged on. I’ve broken that down by chapter to give a more accurate look of exactly what options one can find here.
The first chapter is Character Options. Here they have heroic merits and tragic flaws. The interesting thing is they are tied to attributes. So, if you happen to have a low attribute you can get merits for it and at the same time if your stats are too high you get flaws. The merits I found boring the flaws I found rich and fun. These are the types of things I think it would be great to work with the player to have the flaws really fit the character. There are plenty of options for each attribute and all of them add a lot of personality and role playing opportunity to the character. They are probably best served in campaigns that the attributes are not too high or else the amount of flaws a character has could easily become silly. There are also racial class modifiers that give a difference between classes dependant on races. These are small things like a +1 reflex save for adroit feet or treat charisma 2 points higher towards dwarves because of their nice beard. Over all I feel the flaws are the strength of this chapter, but the other pieces will be useful for people wanting this type of option.
The second chapter is Character Classes. These are new prestige classes and while d20 is defiantly not lacking in this area, it was refreshing reading over some very interesting ideas that really have not been explored yet. There is the Dilettante, a prestige class that needs to have 4 levels of separate classes and 20 skills with no more then 5 ranks in any. They can gain almost any class ability from the other classes. The Elementalist is pretty much what one would expect, the Gallowglass is the ultimate in armor wearing fighters, the Gemcaster is self explanatory, pit fighter is really cool and so much better then the Wizards version, sidestepper is a class the specializes in teleport like abilities it s great. Then there are elite prestige classes. Basically they are tougher classes to get into requiring 12 levels or higher. The Arcane warrior is pretty basic, Plant Master is cool, Rogue Hunter is also cool, Temporal Mage is possible one of the best takes on temporal magic I've read, and the Undead Bane is also good but basic
Next are epic levels. I was really happy to see someone finally give an alternate version of class levels higher then twenty. The XP progression slows down taking 30 thousand to go from 21st to 22nd for instance. Ranks, feats, attribute bonuses progress like pre 20th level. These only go up to 30th level so I feel they work very well since they don't have to scale to infinity and beyond. They only extend the core classes but do them like second edition High Level Book which I really liked. The one think they don't do that I would have liked is tenth level spells.
Then come the truly alternate rules in the third chapter called alternate combat rules. There are new rules for initiative, critical fumbles, complex fumbles, alternative combat rules like phased combat (it increases the uncertainty in battles), weapons speeds, armor damage, wound level system, and detailed critical hits. The options are all solid and for people looking for a different way to do these things, this is a good place to look.
The fourth chapter gives new arcane spell casting systems. There are systems for mana based spells, skill based spells, spell criticals, physical fatigue for casting spells, and a few other options. Again, this is a chapter filled with good options that will be just what someone is looking for.
Chapter five deals with variant magic. That is new core classes that are while dealing with magic are very different from the core classes found in the Players Handbook. These are not just variants of the core classes like many books offer. These classes are fully defined, rich with creativity and intelligence, and most importantly to me are unlike almost any other magic class I has seen. There is Aethercraft magic through science, Animism, Geomancy or ley line magic, Soulcrafting "art of personality theft and identity buglary", and each has its own spell lists amd new spells for the classes
And the last chapter deals with Castles and Keeps. This is a really cool system that works communities like characters. They have specific feats they can take to enhance the towns, their own ability scores to help define them, etc. Its a really cool idea and I wish I was running the type of game this could be used and meaningful. There’s rules for the places reputation, figuring out its wealth, government, philosophies...its one of the most innovative systems I've seen.
I have found this book to be more useful then Unearthed Arcana. Both are a mix of optional rules, but the ones found here I felt were better fit and easier to use. Ultimately though, it will vary from DM to DM on which book of options they prefer.
