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Bastards and Bloodlines
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<blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2010410" data-attributes="member: 172"><p><strong>Bastards and Bloodlines</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Bastards and Bloodlines</em> is a rules supplement in Green Ronin's <em>Races of Reknown</em> line detailing options for character races. <em>Bastards and Bloodlines</em> approaches the rather broad topic of half-breeds between different races.</p><p></p><p><em>Bastards and Bloodlines</em> is written by Owen K.C. Stephens, contributor to the <em>Star Wars</em> RPG and <em>Everquest</em> RPG, and oft-times columnist is various RPG magazines and websites.</p><p></p><p><strong>A First Look</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Bastards & Bloodlines</em> is a 112-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $19.95. This price is about average for a d20 product of this size and format.</p><p></p><p>The cover of the book is illustrated by James Ryan. The cover depicts two of the book's unusual races (the half-mind flayer <em>mind ripper</em> and the dwarf/gargoyle crossbreed called the <em>watcher</em>) locked in mortal combat.</p><p></p><p>The interior is black-and-white. Interior artists include James Ryman, Toren "Macbin" Atkinson, and Julian Allen. The art is generally decent, and all three authors seem to have a talent with detailed pencil sketches. I think I appreciated Ryman's pieces the best, particularly his full page picture of a half-elf/half-naga <em>Sthein</em> in combat with three warriors.</p><p></p><p>The interior body text uses a conservatively sized font, though the paragraphs are double spaced and there is a larger leader space than I am used to from Green Ronin. The header text is stylish is readable.</p><p></p><p><strong>A Deeper Look</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Bastards and Bloodlines</em> is organized into four chapters.</p><p></p><p>The first chapter is entitled <em>Half-Breeds in Your Campaign</em>, and it discusses the topic rather generally, outlining a few ideas and principles for how a DM might approach the topic of racial crossbreeds.</p><p></p><p>Stephens outlines two major options for handling half-breeds in the campaign. The first is the idea that humans are a rather fecund race and that certain racial combinations are possible. The other major option is a rather more "anything goes" approach, where any two races might be able to interbreed in the right circumstances.</p><p></p><p>This started the book off on a sour note to me, as this seemed to appeal to the most simplistic sort of handwaving that occurs in the game and ignores some more compelling possibilities that try to better justify why such creatures exist and add deeper campaign implications. For example, what about the classic plot of a wizardly empire that used magical techniques to create soldiers for their armies, and leaving such races behind as a legacy? What about magical accidents, or divine creations?</p><p></p><p>The text alludes to some of these sorts of possibilities and ad hoc examples of this sort exist in the races chapter, but it seems a major omission to me to not include these sorts of justifications in the general discussion of integrating halfbreeds into the campaign.</p><p></p><p>The chapter also includes ideas for campaigns that are mostly or exclusively halfbreed characters, and a number of "half-breed archetypes" that you can use as baselines for the personalities of half-breed PCs or NPCs. More in line with the level of imagination and thoroughness I expect from Stephens, these descriptions include some good ideas.</p><p></p><p>The second chapter is the largest, taking up almost half of the book. The chapter is a collection of various specific half-breed races, written up in PHB-style. Each description is complete with possible origins of such races, appearance, demeanor, background, and game mechanics. </p><p></p><p>The game mechanics appear solid and complete, with level adjustments for powerful races. The only thing I question in the mechanical implementation is that the races with higher level modifiers don't have any starting "monster" hit dice, skills, or feats. This will make these more powerful creatures difficult to play, as they will be easily taken out of the fight for campaigns appropriate to their minimum starting level.</p><p></p><p>The choices for half-breeds vary from the reasonable (half-elf/half-nymph or half-halfling/half-harpy) to the bizarre (half-elf/half-giant eagle or half-dwarf/half-roper). Stephens gives these halfbreeds their own racial names. For example, the half-halfling/half-harpies are called "kestrels." In some cases, the chosen names are those of common fantasy concepts and might overlap with those of creatures that appear elsewhere.</p><p></p><p>If chapter three's approach was fundamentally similar to the PHB, chapter four is a bit more like the MM. Chapter four, <em>Making More Crossbreeds</em> has some specific halfbreed templates (half-beholder, half-medusa, half-rakshasa, half-doppleganger, half-titan, half-elemental) as well as two general halfbreed templates in the same vein as <em>Tome of Horror</em>'s abomination and <em>Monster Manual II</em>'s tauric creature template. There is a half-creature (biped) template and a half-creature (quadruped) template, each of which use two creatures to create the final result.</p><p></p><p>The chapter also has a few pages of sensible advice on making your own half-breed creatures from scratch, including the how's and why's of mechanical sticky points like odd attribute modifiers, racial abilities, and CRs, and possible approaches to handling these issues.</p><p></p><p>The final chapter, <em>Using the Blood</em>, has the type of content you typically see in other race-oriented books: character options like feats, prestige classes, spells, and magic items.</p><p></p><p>There is a good degree of variety in the feats, but most fall into two categories. Many feats allow a half-breed to exploit their ancestry to obtain a racial ability (such as skill or combat bonuses) normally restricted to full-blood members of a race. Most of the remaining feats allow a character enhance their existing racial abilities, such as spell-like abilities.</p><p></p><p>There are four prestige classes in the book, all only available to half-breed characters:</p><p><em><strong> -Autarkic:</strong></em> The autarkic is a hardened survivor. All of the autarkic's class abilities are defensive in nature, and the class has all good saves (like a monk.) Some autarkic class abilities are survival traits which can be selected from a list. One survival trait concerns me, the damage reduction. This ability grants DR equal to one half the character's base fortitude sav; unless this is limited to the fortitude save from the class only, it seems entirely too powerful to me.</p><p><em><strong> -Brood Sorcerer:</strong></em> Brood sorcerers are sorcerers that draw power from the nature of their bloodline (such as dragon blood). The brood sorcerer progresses at 2/3 the normal rate as a spellcaster, but has better HP and a number of magic-related class abilities.</p><p><em><strong> -Brood Champion:</strong></em> The brood champion is a warrior who develops a fighting style around their more bestial aspect. As the brood champion advances, they gain bestial characteristics like improvements to natural weaponry and damage reduction. They also gain feats at the same rate as a fighter, but only have moderate BAB advancement.</p><p><em><strong> -Changeling:</strong></em> The changeling is a class reserved for characters with innate shapechange abilities. The class abilities provide benefits when using such racial abilities, such as additional uses or circumstantial modifiers.</p><p></p><p>The magic items and spells revolve around racial abilities. The spells are called blood spells, and each spell requires the caster to have the blood of a certain type of creature. For example, the spell <em>elemental immunity</em> is a dragon-blood spell, and can only be cast by characters with draconic blood.</p><p></p><p>Finally, the book has an appendix collecting pertinent details about the races and feats in the book.</p><p></p><p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p><p></p><p>I have mixed feeling about this book. Most of the mechanics are solid, and I found many of the ideas compelling. At the same time, I felt that a lot of the more compelling explanations for halfbreeds in a campaign were ignored, and many of the halfbreed races were too bizarre for general use.</p><p></p><p>I think that if you pick up this book knowing how you want to use it already, are tolerant (or desire) really strange races, and/or are comfortable with simpler "handwaving" explanations of crossbreeding, that you should be fairly satisfied with the content of this book. However, if you are like me, you may that you will only be salvaging a few ideas from the book.</p><p></p><p><em>Overall score: C+</em></p><p></p><p><em> -Alan D. Kohler</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Psion, post: 2010410, member: 172"] [b]Bastards and Bloodlines[/b] [I]Bastards and Bloodlines[/I] is a rules supplement in Green Ronin's [I]Races of Reknown[/I] line detailing options for character races. [I]Bastards and Bloodlines[/I] approaches the rather broad topic of half-breeds between different races. [I]Bastards and Bloodlines[/I] is written by Owen K.C. Stephens, contributor to the [I]Star Wars[/I] RPG and [I]Everquest[/I] RPG, and oft-times columnist is various RPG magazines and websites. [b]A First Look[/b] [I]Bastards & Bloodlines[/I] is a 112-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $19.95. This price is about average for a d20 product of this size and format. The cover of the book is illustrated by James Ryan. The cover depicts two of the book's unusual races (the half-mind flayer [I]mind ripper[/I] and the dwarf/gargoyle crossbreed called the [I]watcher[/I]) locked in mortal combat. The interior is black-and-white. Interior artists include James Ryman, Toren "Macbin" Atkinson, and Julian Allen. The art is generally decent, and all three authors seem to have a talent with detailed pencil sketches. I think I appreciated Ryman's pieces the best, particularly his full page picture of a half-elf/half-naga [I]Sthein[/I] in combat with three warriors. The interior body text uses a conservatively sized font, though the paragraphs are double spaced and there is a larger leader space than I am used to from Green Ronin. The header text is stylish is readable. [b]A Deeper Look[/b] [I]Bastards and Bloodlines[/I] is organized into four chapters. The first chapter is entitled [I]Half-Breeds in Your Campaign[/I], and it discusses the topic rather generally, outlining a few ideas and principles for how a DM might approach the topic of racial crossbreeds. Stephens outlines two major options for handling half-breeds in the campaign. The first is the idea that humans are a rather fecund race and that certain racial combinations are possible. The other major option is a rather more "anything goes" approach, where any two races might be able to interbreed in the right circumstances. This started the book off on a sour note to me, as this seemed to appeal to the most simplistic sort of handwaving that occurs in the game and ignores some more compelling possibilities that try to better justify why such creatures exist and add deeper campaign implications. For example, what about the classic plot of a wizardly empire that used magical techniques to create soldiers for their armies, and leaving such races behind as a legacy? What about magical accidents, or divine creations? The text alludes to some of these sorts of possibilities and ad hoc examples of this sort exist in the races chapter, but it seems a major omission to me to not include these sorts of justifications in the general discussion of integrating halfbreeds into the campaign. The chapter also includes ideas for campaigns that are mostly or exclusively halfbreed characters, and a number of "half-breed archetypes" that you can use as baselines for the personalities of half-breed PCs or NPCs. More in line with the level of imagination and thoroughness I expect from Stephens, these descriptions include some good ideas. The second chapter is the largest, taking up almost half of the book. The chapter is a collection of various specific half-breed races, written up in PHB-style. Each description is complete with possible origins of such races, appearance, demeanor, background, and game mechanics. The game mechanics appear solid and complete, with level adjustments for powerful races. The only thing I question in the mechanical implementation is that the races with higher level modifiers don't have any starting "monster" hit dice, skills, or feats. This will make these more powerful creatures difficult to play, as they will be easily taken out of the fight for campaigns appropriate to their minimum starting level. The choices for half-breeds vary from the reasonable (half-elf/half-nymph or half-halfling/half-harpy) to the bizarre (half-elf/half-giant eagle or half-dwarf/half-roper). Stephens gives these halfbreeds their own racial names. For example, the half-halfling/half-harpies are called "kestrels." In some cases, the chosen names are those of common fantasy concepts and might overlap with those of creatures that appear elsewhere. If chapter three's approach was fundamentally similar to the PHB, chapter four is a bit more like the MM. Chapter four, [I]Making More Crossbreeds[/I] has some specific halfbreed templates (half-beholder, half-medusa, half-rakshasa, half-doppleganger, half-titan, half-elemental) as well as two general halfbreed templates in the same vein as [I]Tome of Horror[/I]'s abomination and [I]Monster Manual II[/I]'s tauric creature template. There is a half-creature (biped) template and a half-creature (quadruped) template, each of which use two creatures to create the final result. The chapter also has a few pages of sensible advice on making your own half-breed creatures from scratch, including the how's and why's of mechanical sticky points like odd attribute modifiers, racial abilities, and CRs, and possible approaches to handling these issues. The final chapter, [I]Using the Blood[/I], has the type of content you typically see in other race-oriented books: character options like feats, prestige classes, spells, and magic items. There is a good degree of variety in the feats, but most fall into two categories. Many feats allow a half-breed to exploit their ancestry to obtain a racial ability (such as skill or combat bonuses) normally restricted to full-blood members of a race. Most of the remaining feats allow a character enhance their existing racial abilities, such as spell-like abilities. There are four prestige classes in the book, all only available to half-breed characters: [I][b] -Autarkic:[/b][/I] The autarkic is a hardened survivor. All of the autarkic's class abilities are defensive in nature, and the class has all good saves (like a monk.) Some autarkic class abilities are survival traits which can be selected from a list. One survival trait concerns me, the damage reduction. This ability grants DR equal to one half the character's base fortitude sav; unless this is limited to the fortitude save from the class only, it seems entirely too powerful to me. [I][b] -Brood Sorcerer:[/b][/I] Brood sorcerers are sorcerers that draw power from the nature of their bloodline (such as dragon blood). The brood sorcerer progresses at 2/3 the normal rate as a spellcaster, but has better HP and a number of magic-related class abilities. [I][b] -Brood Champion:[/b][/I] The brood champion is a warrior who develops a fighting style around their more bestial aspect. As the brood champion advances, they gain bestial characteristics like improvements to natural weaponry and damage reduction. They also gain feats at the same rate as a fighter, but only have moderate BAB advancement. [I][b] -Changeling:[/b][/I] The changeling is a class reserved for characters with innate shapechange abilities. The class abilities provide benefits when using such racial abilities, such as additional uses or circumstantial modifiers. The magic items and spells revolve around racial abilities. The spells are called blood spells, and each spell requires the caster to have the blood of a certain type of creature. For example, the spell [I]elemental immunity[/I] is a dragon-blood spell, and can only be cast by characters with draconic blood. Finally, the book has an appendix collecting pertinent details about the races and feats in the book. [b]Conclusion[/b] I have mixed feeling about this book. Most of the mechanics are solid, and I found many of the ideas compelling. At the same time, I felt that a lot of the more compelling explanations for halfbreeds in a campaign were ignored, and many of the halfbreed races were too bizarre for general use. I think that if you pick up this book knowing how you want to use it already, are tolerant (or desire) really strange races, and/or are comfortable with simpler "handwaving" explanations of crossbreeding, that you should be fairly satisfied with the content of this book. However, if you are like me, you may that you will only be salvaging a few ideas from the book. [I]Overall score: C+[/I] [I] -Alan D. Kohler[/I] [/QUOTE]
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