airwalkrr
Adventurer
Ugh, in a word. Now I confess, I have not read the book the whole way through, but from what I have read so far, it is probably one of the worst buys I have ever made and will probably never see the light of day in my campaign. (I buy everything published by WotC for D&D because I have a collector mentality, but maybe this will help someone else who isn't so obsessive.)
The first thing that tipped me off that this might not have been the best purchase I ever made was the fact that a sidebar in the first section of the book explained that the writers intentionally incorporated eastern style martial arts into the game. *raspberries* Now I like movies like Kill Bill and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but when it comes to gaming, I don't want my PCs flying around like ninjas and dancing in a whirl of blades that undresses their foe. Such things can be cinematic and entertaining when on screen but for my money, they add nothing to a roleplaying game. I have nothing specifically against Asian culture, but if a roleplaying game is going to be set in the Far East or a world with oriental style, I prefer the game to focus on the elements that make that kind of world unique, not the absurd type of fighting we see in the movies that any reasonable person knows is not very realistic. For example, the idea that dragons are all demons from a distant world who possess mortals could be an interesting bit of flavor, or the loyalty of the samurai to the daimyo could be a compelling story device. But the ninja who single-handedly slays an army of 1,000 and catches 100 arrows in his hand, all in the space of 30 seconds, and still manages to clean his blades in that time without having spilled a single drop of blood upon his person is not a motif that belongs in my games. Your mileage may vary, but it isn't my cup of tea.
Now style out of the way, I don't like the book mechanically either. Fighting has traditionally been the role of the fighter and nifty effects have traditionally been the role of the wizard, cleric, druid, or [insert spellcaster here]. The Book of Nine Swords introduces nine new disciplines which work very much like schools of magic, are even grouped into levels from 1 to 9 like spells, and have abilities (such as the ability to inflict 4d6 fire damage on an opponent who hits you as an immediate action or the ability to take two full round actions in one round once per encounter) that are well on par with spells of their level, even if they are martially oriented. I have not seen this in practice, but I cannot imagine how integrating combat maneuvers and stances into your campaign would NOT have a horrible impact upon game balance. Each class presented, the crusader, swordsage, and warblade, seem more powerful than any single martial class in the Player's Handbook, and I believe power creep like this is bad for the game. Even with the caveat that classes from the PH can learn these maneuvers and stances too, all that means is that classes from the PH WILL learn these maneuvers and stances because the abilities they grant seem, by and large, vastly superior to those gained by normal feats.
Now I could be entirely wrong about this, but my current opinion is that this book might be interesting to mine for flavorful ideas, but I will hardly ever consider it a potential option for my game mechanics.
The first thing that tipped me off that this might not have been the best purchase I ever made was the fact that a sidebar in the first section of the book explained that the writers intentionally incorporated eastern style martial arts into the game. *raspberries* Now I like movies like Kill Bill and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but when it comes to gaming, I don't want my PCs flying around like ninjas and dancing in a whirl of blades that undresses their foe. Such things can be cinematic and entertaining when on screen but for my money, they add nothing to a roleplaying game. I have nothing specifically against Asian culture, but if a roleplaying game is going to be set in the Far East or a world with oriental style, I prefer the game to focus on the elements that make that kind of world unique, not the absurd type of fighting we see in the movies that any reasonable person knows is not very realistic. For example, the idea that dragons are all demons from a distant world who possess mortals could be an interesting bit of flavor, or the loyalty of the samurai to the daimyo could be a compelling story device. But the ninja who single-handedly slays an army of 1,000 and catches 100 arrows in his hand, all in the space of 30 seconds, and still manages to clean his blades in that time without having spilled a single drop of blood upon his person is not a motif that belongs in my games. Your mileage may vary, but it isn't my cup of tea.
Now style out of the way, I don't like the book mechanically either. Fighting has traditionally been the role of the fighter and nifty effects have traditionally been the role of the wizard, cleric, druid, or [insert spellcaster here]. The Book of Nine Swords introduces nine new disciplines which work very much like schools of magic, are even grouped into levels from 1 to 9 like spells, and have abilities (such as the ability to inflict 4d6 fire damage on an opponent who hits you as an immediate action or the ability to take two full round actions in one round once per encounter) that are well on par with spells of their level, even if they are martially oriented. I have not seen this in practice, but I cannot imagine how integrating combat maneuvers and stances into your campaign would NOT have a horrible impact upon game balance. Each class presented, the crusader, swordsage, and warblade, seem more powerful than any single martial class in the Player's Handbook, and I believe power creep like this is bad for the game. Even with the caveat that classes from the PH can learn these maneuvers and stances too, all that means is that classes from the PH WILL learn these maneuvers and stances because the abilities they grant seem, by and large, vastly superior to those gained by normal feats.
Now I could be entirely wrong about this, but my current opinion is that this book might be interesting to mine for flavorful ideas, but I will hardly ever consider it a potential option for my game mechanics.
