Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

akr71 · Apr 21, 2016

3 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

There's a lot of good stuff in this book, don't get me wrong. As someone who hasn't spent a lot of time with the Forgotten Realms, this was useful. The religion & deity info was useful, the history of the region and the nations were all good. However its a pretty thin book for the cost. The map is gorgeous, but small and lacks a scale. Also I'm not a big fan of the other artwork in the book - it feels a little cartoony at times and is not up to the level of the other books in my opinion.

TheSwartz · Apr 26, 2016

2 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

I was expecting a book full of useful things. Backgrounds, maybe some subclasses, cool magic items specific to the Forgotten Realms. A bunch of lore. Updates on where the FR is in 5th ed... and more. Maybe I was expecting too much. There are some things in this book that can be used so it's not a 1 star item, but I'm sorry to say that it's just not necessary to ever purchase this book. It's the sort of thing that you wish they'd put up a PDF version on DMs guild at 50% the list price, and then maybe it'd be worth purchasing.

sim-h · Apr 26, 2016

4 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

I found the guide pretty useful in comparison with some of the reviewers here. The Storm Sorceror, Mastermind and Swashbuckler Rogues and the specific backgrounds such as Town Watch and Cloistered Scholar are all nice additions. The subject matter on Dieties was also very useful although I understand much of that would be available elsewhere. On the downside the region map is very small scale, and the price for the book is quite high. Nevertheless I can recommend it, especially for people new to D&D running the published campaigns such as Princes of the Apocalypse or Out of the Abyss.

timbannock · Oct 13, 2016

2 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

Unsure of who the target audience is, Wizards of the Coast makes its first critical fumble with the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, a slim book featuring some real diamonds in terms of character creation (Backgrounds, Races, and Classes), but ultimately covering the Realms (not just the Sword Coast) in weak, vague terms. With over 100 pages geared mainly towards providing information useful strictly for filling out a Player Character’s backstory, this is the type of release that can easily be skipped unless you need the crunchy bits, in which case you’re better off finding it on a steep discount for the (at best) 50 pages you will end up using.

Rating: Content 2/5 and Form 3/5.

Read the full review on neuronphaser.com!

Evhelm · Nov 8, 2016

5 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

It is exactly what it purports to be: a source of juicy morsels about the landscape of the Sword Coast as it recommends itself to 5e.

Do not come a-knockin' lookin' for crunch, because this book is all about the fluff. And such sweet fluff it is!

akr71 · Nov 30, 2016

3 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

I like it, I really do. Its a little light on the page count for the cover price though.

For someone who is not terribly familiar with the Sword Coast and points nearby, it is really interesting - the fluff is what I expected out of this book. The extra class options were nice, but not what I bought it for. Reading it, I kept thinking "Cool, I could put my adventurers here - its just asking for me to write something." I'm not the kind of DM that gets hung up on canon - this book offers enough background and fluff to take the heavy lifting out of campaign design, but still leaves enough flexibility to let my imagination run wild.

guachi · Nov 17, 2017

2 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

If you aren't really interested in the Forgotten Realms information there is nothing to recommend in Sword Coast as many of the best subclasses and spells were reprinted in Everything.

Jesse David · Feb 5, 2019

1 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

If you're committed to running a lot of games in the north sword coast, than MAYBE this book is worth your money. Or for players, if your DM is planning to stick to the prepackaged lore of the north sword coast (and run most of their adventures there) and you want to familiarize yourself with the setting, than MAYBE this is worth your money. Pretty bland and unevocative though (and I'm not coming at this with any FR hate). Not recommended.

Zardnaar · Feb 11, 2019

3 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

Odd kind of book, roughly 2/3rds fluff with a bit of crunch. What crunch there is is really good but its not really a campaign guide book and not really a splat. Even then the fluff was done better in previous editions.

Overall its a book. Its not great its not terrible.