Sparky McDibben
Adventurer
Alright, friends. Most of y'all don't know me on ENWorld, so let me introduce myself. My name's Sparky McDibben, and I do entirely too-long and too-in-depth reviews of RPG products I bought. My previous work was over on Giant in the Playground, if anyone's familiar with that site:
Everyday Heroes
Uncharted Journeys
Into the Cess & Citadel
Planegea
So, Nations & Cannons is a 5E ruleset that takes standard vanilla 5E and updates it to an 18th century tech base (though you could easily flex between 17th to 19th century weaponry with it). The way it's intended to be used is for pure historical roleplaying, which means that they pare the classes down to only four (barbarian, fighter, ranger and rogue). The also add in a whole new class, the firebrand, that helps round out some of the missing functions of the removed classes. The intended approach here is more like Assassin's Creed - you're not playing George Washington, you're playing a small, plucky band of heroes that helps out around the edges of major events. So at no point should your DM ever have you standing in a line trading potshots with redcoats. Instead, you're taking the very first combat submersible out to help break the British blockade. Or you're charging Fort Ticonderoga in the small hours, with Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold.
However, the good folks over at the publisher (Flagbearer Games, a friend of these distinguished forums) also know that sometimes, you just need a wizard. So they've also got plans to begin publishing a "flintlock fantasy" line of adventures, starting with Benjamin Franklin, Banshee Slayer as part of their current Kickstarter.
So I picked up the Core Rules on DriveThruRPG, and starting taking a look. And what I found was so interesting that I decided to back the Kickstarter and the Patreon that same day! And now I'd like to share some of that material with all y'all, 'cuz it's goddamned amazing!
So my plan is to proceed with a review of Nations & Cannons chapter-by-chapter, accounting for some slight weirdness with a recent update to their firearms rules. But first, a quick disambiguation! I picked up the Core Rules, available on DriveThruRPG for $4.99. Those are 118 pages long, and account for the base N&C rules. What's currently on Kickstarter is their first adventure path, The American Crisis: War In The North. That project has 5 days left to back (at time of writing), and includes a variety of fun adventure material you can check out on their Kickstarter site: www.YourDadWillLoveThis.com. I will only be covering the Core Rules for obvious reasons.
Alright, let's dive into this! Nations & Cannons proceeds in seven chapters:
1) Origins
2) Class / Subclass Options
3) Backgrounds & Feats
4) Equipment
5) Gambits
6) Bad Guys
7) Starting Adventure: The Invasion of Canada
Let's take them in order, for as long as my fingers ain't got the arthritis.
Chapter 1: Origins
This chapter is all about where you come from, and how you might see your world. It kicks off with a discussion of the broad regions of the American colonies, along with the number of language groups spoken in those areas. This includes European, native, African, and syncretic languages, so there's a lot to choose from. After that, we get into the origins themselves. Origins are a replacement for race. In the base game, everyone's a human, and that removes a pretty important choice from gameplay. The designers countered that by letting you choose your starting socioeconomic bracket. Also interestingly, each origin has two iconic historical characters. These are, as far as I can tell, all real folks that I haven't heard of before, like this dude: Peter Francisco. It's a nice touch, grounding these archetypes in folks you can go and read up on.
The origins themselves are Officer, Pioneer, Renegade, Scholar, Scout, and Veteran. These backgrounds are all wildly different - for example, officers get double cash throughout the game, but have to conduct themselves like gentlemen. Failing to do so is a mark of shame, and can get you stripped of your commission. But you also get +2 to one ability score, the ability to grant an ally inspiration 1x/rest, and two skill proficiencies (of your choice). As you can see, these aren't just straight reskins out of the PHB; a fair bit of thought has gone into what archetypes they are trying to model, and how.
Alright, friends - I'm going to leave it there for today. Next time, we'll discuss the four new subclasses, and the whole new class that's available for N&C: the firebrand!
Everyday Heroes
Uncharted Journeys
Into the Cess & Citadel
Planegea
So, Nations & Cannons is a 5E ruleset that takes standard vanilla 5E and updates it to an 18th century tech base (though you could easily flex between 17th to 19th century weaponry with it). The way it's intended to be used is for pure historical roleplaying, which means that they pare the classes down to only four (barbarian, fighter, ranger and rogue). The also add in a whole new class, the firebrand, that helps round out some of the missing functions of the removed classes. The intended approach here is more like Assassin's Creed - you're not playing George Washington, you're playing a small, plucky band of heroes that helps out around the edges of major events. So at no point should your DM ever have you standing in a line trading potshots with redcoats. Instead, you're taking the very first combat submersible out to help break the British blockade. Or you're charging Fort Ticonderoga in the small hours, with Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold.
However, the good folks over at the publisher (Flagbearer Games, a friend of these distinguished forums) also know that sometimes, you just need a wizard. So they've also got plans to begin publishing a "flintlock fantasy" line of adventures, starting with Benjamin Franklin, Banshee Slayer as part of their current Kickstarter.
So I picked up the Core Rules on DriveThruRPG, and starting taking a look. And what I found was so interesting that I decided to back the Kickstarter and the Patreon that same day! And now I'd like to share some of that material with all y'all, 'cuz it's goddamned amazing!
So my plan is to proceed with a review of Nations & Cannons chapter-by-chapter, accounting for some slight weirdness with a recent update to their firearms rules. But first, a quick disambiguation! I picked up the Core Rules, available on DriveThruRPG for $4.99. Those are 118 pages long, and account for the base N&C rules. What's currently on Kickstarter is their first adventure path, The American Crisis: War In The North. That project has 5 days left to back (at time of writing), and includes a variety of fun adventure material you can check out on their Kickstarter site: www.YourDadWillLoveThis.com. I will only be covering the Core Rules for obvious reasons.
Alright, let's dive into this! Nations & Cannons proceeds in seven chapters:
1) Origins
2) Class / Subclass Options
3) Backgrounds & Feats
4) Equipment
5) Gambits
6) Bad Guys
7) Starting Adventure: The Invasion of Canada
Let's take them in order, for as long as my fingers ain't got the arthritis.
Chapter 1: Origins
This chapter is all about where you come from, and how you might see your world. It kicks off with a discussion of the broad regions of the American colonies, along with the number of language groups spoken in those areas. This includes European, native, African, and syncretic languages, so there's a lot to choose from. After that, we get into the origins themselves. Origins are a replacement for race. In the base game, everyone's a human, and that removes a pretty important choice from gameplay. The designers countered that by letting you choose your starting socioeconomic bracket. Also interestingly, each origin has two iconic historical characters. These are, as far as I can tell, all real folks that I haven't heard of before, like this dude: Peter Francisco. It's a nice touch, grounding these archetypes in folks you can go and read up on.
The origins themselves are Officer, Pioneer, Renegade, Scholar, Scout, and Veteran. These backgrounds are all wildly different - for example, officers get double cash throughout the game, but have to conduct themselves like gentlemen. Failing to do so is a mark of shame, and can get you stripped of your commission. But you also get +2 to one ability score, the ability to grant an ally inspiration 1x/rest, and two skill proficiencies (of your choice). As you can see, these aren't just straight reskins out of the PHB; a fair bit of thought has gone into what archetypes they are trying to model, and how.
Alright, friends - I'm going to leave it there for today. Next time, we'll discuss the four new subclasses, and the whole new class that's available for N&C: the firebrand!