Psion
Adventurer
Aerial Adventure Guide: Sky Captain's Companion
The Aerial Adventure Guide: Sky Captain's Companion is a rules and setting resource for adding airborne realms to a campaign. The book is written by Michael Mearls with additional writing by Joseph Goodman, Timothy Grubb, Gannar Hultgren, and Joseph Goodman, and is published by Goodman Games.
Much of the material in this book was originally published as 3 32-page volumes (one of which, Aerial Adventure Guide Vol I: Rulers of the Sky was reviewed here by me), though additional material has been added for this volume and the whole is updated to 3.5 edition rules.
A First Look
The Aerial Adventure Guide: Sky Captain's Companion is a 144 page hardbound book priced at $27.99.
The cover is illustrated by Michael Erickson. The cover image depicts a sabre-wielding elf amidst a fleet of flying ships. The background of the book has an image appearing like a tough hide of some creature, and the book's look and feel are similar to Goodman Games' Underdark Adventure Guide.
The interior is black and white with artwork by Carlos Henry, William McAusland, and V. Shane, with deckplans by Clayton bunce and cartography by Matt Snyder. Much of art are detailed and well done shaded ink illustrations, and the the deckplans are likewise excellent, though some of the artwork is simplistic and in some cases sketchy line-art.
A Deeper Look
As mentioned, the Aerial Adventure Guide was originally published as three slender sourcebooks. Other reviewers and I noted the relative low overall value of these books. This volume pulls together and updates all those volumes and adds additional material.
The book is organized into six chapters, plus an introduction, ship record sheet and ship deck plans (the deckplans are also replicated in an attractive fashion in the endleaves.)
The introduction isn't totally gratuitous and offers a few ideas for adding aerial realms to your campaign, including ideas for different sorts of aeriel realms and other features. There are a few rules considerations here, such as modifications to the settlement rules in the DMG
The first chapter covers character creation for character hailing from aerial realms, including details on new and existing races and classes in the setting, and new prestige classes and feats.
The races section introduces three new races:
- Archial: The acharial are treacherous intelligent spiderlike creatures. They are treated as aberrations, can spin webs, and have a tough hide. In a way, their presence hearkens back to spelljammer, which had the spider-like neogi.
-Avians: Avians are an uncivilized race of winged humanoids with taloned feet. I find the name of this race somewhat unfortunate because it refers to a type of creature. For example, if you say a feat is for "avians only" (and there is such a feat in this book), does it only apply to the avian character race, or could giant eagles take it too?
-Sky elves: This elven racial variant lives among the clouds. They are hardier than surface elves, but their lives have made them more gruff and dour. In addition to standard elf skill bonuses, sky elves receive a bonus to balance.
The race section also describes the role of surface races in the sky realms.
Heroic legacies are a selection of feats similar to regional feats from Player's Guide to Faerun in that they are more potent than standard feats. Further, the book suggests that one be granted free to starting characters in an aerial campaign, but otherwise only be available to first level characters. I am not to keen on the idea of "super feats", but in the context of aerial characters, they make some sense because they help explain how the player got into the sky realms and assists somewhat with survival and mobility (such as granting a flying mount or flying ability or the ability to use feather fall.)
The class section describes how the various classes fit into the sky realms and introduces three new prestige classes (only two of which appeared in the original volume):
-Air knight is a character trained in fighting on flying mounts; they are members of a prestigious order and gain access to flying mounts of varying powers as they advance.
-Elemental Convert: Based on the heroic legacy feats mentioned earlier, the elemental convert is a short (3 level) class than gains air elemental-like abilities.
-Sky elf battle captain: This short (5 level) class is an expert at leading sky ships in combat and also gains an airship and crew as a boon.
A brief section of new skills introduces three new profession skill categories that could come up in airborn campaigns: miner, sky sailor, and trader.
The new feats features a variety of new feats (again, with many new feats introduced since the first volume and/or updated to 3.5 rules) appropriate to flying characters, characters who ride flying mounts, and characters who man sky ships. As examples, aerialist provides bonuses to operating skyships and riding flying mounts, agile flyer improves the maneuverability of a flying creature improves by one class, hawkeyed reduces penalty to missile attacks and spot rolls due to range, and sky shipwright is an item creation feat allows the creation of skyships. New feat not appearing in the previous volume include racial feats for acharial and avians.
Finally, the chapter provides new equipment, both mundane and magical. Many of the new weapons are meant to be used from a height, such as bombs and weighted drop spears as well and weapons for skyships and adventuring gear appropriate for an aerial game. Magic items are similarly appropriate to characters in sucha game.
The second chapter, Aerial Combat, provides modifications and considerations for the standard d20 system combat rules when resolving aerial combats. Most of the modifications are sensible. An abstract movement system is provided for those who do not want to represent such battles with miniatures, and has some similarities to the way aerial combat is handled in Mongoose's Quintessential Elf.
The third chapter covers sky ship construction and operation, and combat. Skyships construction is fairly straightforward; different size skyships are basically handled like simplified creatures (note, however, that while the scale replicates the standard d20 scales, they correspond to different sizes than creature sizes.) A ship's size and materials determine most of the basic characteristics, and templates can be used to add specific characteristics. In addition to the construction rules, a number of sample designs are included. A skyship record sheet and deckplans for some of the samples appear in the back of the book.
The fourth chapter, The Sky Realms, discusses a number of specific sites in the realms above. The most significant of these is Selliane, a major sky elf city. Selliane is composed of a stack of linked cloud-islands. Selliane is the city it is, in part, because it has the rare quality of having a predictable path through the sky, making it an important trade point.
The section covering Selliane is 10 pages long, and covers details such as political bodies and figures, guard composition, and different wards of the city, with a few lightly detailed locations.
The Sky Realms chapter also includes a number of other locales and personalities ripe for use in a game.
The fifth chapter is the bestiary of the book, containing a variety of airborne threats. In addition to writeups of the earlier PC races and entries for common NPC groups, there are a variety of airborne threats. Floating or flying versions of common animals are one theme (whale-like leviathans and flying rays, for example), as well as airborne versions of common foes (star and wind dragons and a sky fiend devil), and menacing floating abberations. There are a number of templates as well, including the winged creature, air-infused, and werehawk templates.
The brief sixth chapter offers GM advice for running aerial campaigns. Discussed are approaches both introducing aerial realms to standard ground campaigns, as well as playing an aerial campaign from the start. The chapter also discusses types of adventures, provides some rules support for such, and discusses a little bit of possible cosmology that might exist in a more fantastic game worlds if the players explore what's up there even further.
Conclusions
In my original review of Aerial Adventure Guide Volume I, I commented that a combined volume would be much more cost effective. My expectations there were not only met but exceeded. Having all three volumes available makes for a more complete book, and the additional material helps shore it up and adds interesting options.
Overall Grade: B
-Alan D. Kohler
The Aerial Adventure Guide: Sky Captain's Companion is a rules and setting resource for adding airborne realms to a campaign. The book is written by Michael Mearls with additional writing by Joseph Goodman, Timothy Grubb, Gannar Hultgren, and Joseph Goodman, and is published by Goodman Games.
Much of the material in this book was originally published as 3 32-page volumes (one of which, Aerial Adventure Guide Vol I: Rulers of the Sky was reviewed here by me), though additional material has been added for this volume and the whole is updated to 3.5 edition rules.
A First Look
The Aerial Adventure Guide: Sky Captain's Companion is a 144 page hardbound book priced at $27.99.
The cover is illustrated by Michael Erickson. The cover image depicts a sabre-wielding elf amidst a fleet of flying ships. The background of the book has an image appearing like a tough hide of some creature, and the book's look and feel are similar to Goodman Games' Underdark Adventure Guide.
The interior is black and white with artwork by Carlos Henry, William McAusland, and V. Shane, with deckplans by Clayton bunce and cartography by Matt Snyder. Much of art are detailed and well done shaded ink illustrations, and the the deckplans are likewise excellent, though some of the artwork is simplistic and in some cases sketchy line-art.
A Deeper Look
As mentioned, the Aerial Adventure Guide was originally published as three slender sourcebooks. Other reviewers and I noted the relative low overall value of these books. This volume pulls together and updates all those volumes and adds additional material.
The book is organized into six chapters, plus an introduction, ship record sheet and ship deck plans (the deckplans are also replicated in an attractive fashion in the endleaves.)
The introduction isn't totally gratuitous and offers a few ideas for adding aerial realms to your campaign, including ideas for different sorts of aeriel realms and other features. There are a few rules considerations here, such as modifications to the settlement rules in the DMG
The first chapter covers character creation for character hailing from aerial realms, including details on new and existing races and classes in the setting, and new prestige classes and feats.
The races section introduces three new races:
- Archial: The acharial are treacherous intelligent spiderlike creatures. They are treated as aberrations, can spin webs, and have a tough hide. In a way, their presence hearkens back to spelljammer, which had the spider-like neogi.
-Avians: Avians are an uncivilized race of winged humanoids with taloned feet. I find the name of this race somewhat unfortunate because it refers to a type of creature. For example, if you say a feat is for "avians only" (and there is such a feat in this book), does it only apply to the avian character race, or could giant eagles take it too?
-Sky elves: This elven racial variant lives among the clouds. They are hardier than surface elves, but their lives have made them more gruff and dour. In addition to standard elf skill bonuses, sky elves receive a bonus to balance.
The race section also describes the role of surface races in the sky realms.
Heroic legacies are a selection of feats similar to regional feats from Player's Guide to Faerun in that they are more potent than standard feats. Further, the book suggests that one be granted free to starting characters in an aerial campaign, but otherwise only be available to first level characters. I am not to keen on the idea of "super feats", but in the context of aerial characters, they make some sense because they help explain how the player got into the sky realms and assists somewhat with survival and mobility (such as granting a flying mount or flying ability or the ability to use feather fall.)
The class section describes how the various classes fit into the sky realms and introduces three new prestige classes (only two of which appeared in the original volume):
-Air knight is a character trained in fighting on flying mounts; they are members of a prestigious order and gain access to flying mounts of varying powers as they advance.
-Elemental Convert: Based on the heroic legacy feats mentioned earlier, the elemental convert is a short (3 level) class than gains air elemental-like abilities.
-Sky elf battle captain: This short (5 level) class is an expert at leading sky ships in combat and also gains an airship and crew as a boon.
A brief section of new skills introduces three new profession skill categories that could come up in airborn campaigns: miner, sky sailor, and trader.
The new feats features a variety of new feats (again, with many new feats introduced since the first volume and/or updated to 3.5 rules) appropriate to flying characters, characters who ride flying mounts, and characters who man sky ships. As examples, aerialist provides bonuses to operating skyships and riding flying mounts, agile flyer improves the maneuverability of a flying creature improves by one class, hawkeyed reduces penalty to missile attacks and spot rolls due to range, and sky shipwright is an item creation feat allows the creation of skyships. New feat not appearing in the previous volume include racial feats for acharial and avians.
Finally, the chapter provides new equipment, both mundane and magical. Many of the new weapons are meant to be used from a height, such as bombs and weighted drop spears as well and weapons for skyships and adventuring gear appropriate for an aerial game. Magic items are similarly appropriate to characters in sucha game.
The second chapter, Aerial Combat, provides modifications and considerations for the standard d20 system combat rules when resolving aerial combats. Most of the modifications are sensible. An abstract movement system is provided for those who do not want to represent such battles with miniatures, and has some similarities to the way aerial combat is handled in Mongoose's Quintessential Elf.
The third chapter covers sky ship construction and operation, and combat. Skyships construction is fairly straightforward; different size skyships are basically handled like simplified creatures (note, however, that while the scale replicates the standard d20 scales, they correspond to different sizes than creature sizes.) A ship's size and materials determine most of the basic characteristics, and templates can be used to add specific characteristics. In addition to the construction rules, a number of sample designs are included. A skyship record sheet and deckplans for some of the samples appear in the back of the book.
The fourth chapter, The Sky Realms, discusses a number of specific sites in the realms above. The most significant of these is Selliane, a major sky elf city. Selliane is composed of a stack of linked cloud-islands. Selliane is the city it is, in part, because it has the rare quality of having a predictable path through the sky, making it an important trade point.
The section covering Selliane is 10 pages long, and covers details such as political bodies and figures, guard composition, and different wards of the city, with a few lightly detailed locations.
The Sky Realms chapter also includes a number of other locales and personalities ripe for use in a game.
The fifth chapter is the bestiary of the book, containing a variety of airborne threats. In addition to writeups of the earlier PC races and entries for common NPC groups, there are a variety of airborne threats. Floating or flying versions of common animals are one theme (whale-like leviathans and flying rays, for example), as well as airborne versions of common foes (star and wind dragons and a sky fiend devil), and menacing floating abberations. There are a number of templates as well, including the winged creature, air-infused, and werehawk templates.
The brief sixth chapter offers GM advice for running aerial campaigns. Discussed are approaches both introducing aerial realms to standard ground campaigns, as well as playing an aerial campaign from the start. The chapter also discusses types of adventures, provides some rules support for such, and discusses a little bit of possible cosmology that might exist in a more fantastic game worlds if the players explore what's up there even further.
Conclusions
In my original review of Aerial Adventure Guide Volume I, I commented that a combined volume would be much more cost effective. My expectations there were not only met but exceeded. Having all three volumes available makes for a more complete book, and the additional material helps shore it up and adds interesting options.
Overall Grade: B
-Alan D. Kohler