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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011546" data-attributes="member: 18387">A Question of Honor: A Guidebook to KnightsBy C. Guill & J. RaynackThis is a sourcebook that focuses on knighthood within the d20 system. It is Alea Publishing Groups (APG) freshman book and is available in PDF. This is a comp copy for review and it was not playtested.Overview: This book is a solid collection of rules and prestige classes. Mechanically, the book is sound - providing a myriad of knightly options. It does add some new mechanics to the game to better simulate knightly combat – some of them are good additions to the game but others require a bit more bookkeeping than most are willing to do.  The major gaffs in the book are its editing and perhaps that the focus was a little strong on Prestige Classes. The book could have scored higher marks with a more through discussion of knighthood. That said, A Question of Honor is a solid buy and worth the money to players and DMs who desire to add more complexity to a chivalrous world. It also comes with two rather nice maps.Appearance & Layout: The PDF is attractive. It has a nice border, logical demarcations, and good integration of the artwork. The TOC is well organized but not hyperlinked. I did not print the book out but it looks to be an ink hog, primarily because of the borders.Art: The art varies considerably from the d20 norm but is evocative. Art is subjective and the label of ‘goodness’ given to the art in this book is liable to be schismatic but I think the art works very well for them. It may not be for everyone but I like it. The map work is solid and includes two pieces - the Hill Lands and the City of Argos. The city map is stunning to look at but its usefulness is questionable until blown up to poster size.Sections:Introduction – Entirely too brief for me. This section discusses the why and wherefores of historical knighthood and could have easily run 10 pages instead of 1 page. What is included is good but it was a morsel rather than a feast. New Rules – This section adds some inventive options for weapons and armor. These rules would make good additions for most games that have a lower magic item density. I will be using all of them in my d20 games. They cover things like critical armor bonuses (increase AC versus the confirm roll of a critical) and the rarity value of magic items (some items are harder to find / take longer to find than others). Feats, Skills, & Fighting Styles – I think APG hit the nail with new uses for old skills. Again, these uses should be easily portable to any game not just the knightly type of game. One complex skill is the diplomatic negotiation of a siege; I think the use strikes a careful balance between ‘DM adlib’ and Wargame complexity, a difficult task to manage. The new Feats ranged from those that are careful revisions of closed content - feats like “Bigger than He Looks” (similar to a “Monkey Grip” though I must admit that APG has the better name <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ) to feats that will likely become staples in many games such as the variety of statistic feats which give a +1 to all skill rolls that use that particular stat:  for example ‘Charming’ is the feat that gives a +1 to all Cha skill rolls. A few of the feats were over the top but overall it is a healthy and balanced diet. If you want to add more options to combat and book work does not scare you, then the Fighting Styles may be just what you are looking for. This collection of skills (gained with Combat Skill Points based off BAB) enables tweaking of combat with a variety of stances, guards, and ripostes. Overall, it was more complex than I think I would use for d20 but it appears to be sound, if cumbersome mechanics.Prestige Classes – The weightiest section of the book. All of the PrCs are useful but occasionally I was jarred out of fantasy when I ran across a name like Knight Hospitaller or Knight Templar. Several orders such as these were ripped out of history and placed within APGs own game world and the flavor text for these entries do not explain the names nor the crusades that they were formed during. Barring the naming issue, the PrCs also suffered another problem with uniformity; several PrCs begin with first person flavor text in italics but others do not. It may just be me, but all of them should have been written this way of the few that were should have had that section dropped. So, there is a naming and formatting issue with the PrCs but overall the category is useful and appears to be well balanced.Followers – the oddest section of the book. This is a collection of various followers that you might find in the company of a knight; these are not individuals, just stat blocks. Some folks will find these very useful while others will not. I think they make a good addition to the game and they will likely see use in my Birthright Games.The two short sections that follow are on equipment and magic items. Both have a variety of useful additions to any d20 games. I particularly liked the two artifact swords that use the rules for ‘awakened’ items: The Sword or Dawn and The Sword of Fallen Lords.The Appendix is an overview of the Hill Lands, a section of APGs game world, Terra. It has a quasi-historical feel to it but once again the names sometime interfere with the immersion – for example the write up for Bath works well even though it is a historical name but then we discover that it is located within the Ancient Plain – ruins of the Grece & Romus empires. Naming issues aside, (maybe it is just a personal quirk of mine) the Hill Lands is a nice regional setting that I would like to see published.Summation – A Question of Honor is a good book. It works to achieve its stated goal of integrating knights into d20 but it falls a little short of that goal. Editing also played a factor in my score and this product would have received a score of 4 if the text, punctuation, and uniformity were cleaned up.  As a freshman book it is outstanding, if APG can learn from their mistakes I expect that they can etch out a loyal following of consumers who like a lower magic item/spellcaster density in their games – consumers like me.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Eosin</blockquote>

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