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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2010925" data-attributes="member: 172">Bow & BladeBow & Blade is a supplemental book dealing with elves (specifically wood elves) in d20 System fantasy games. Bow & Blade is part of the Green Ronin's Races of Renown series dealing with fantasy races. The book is written by Chris Thomasson and Jesse Decker. Decker wrote the well regarded Hammer & Helm dwarf supplement for Green Ronin. Both authors have had a hand in editing the official Dungeons & Dragons publications as well as contributing to official products from Wizards of the Coast.For the benefit of those that care, this review comes with the benefit of some playtesting prior to the writing. Options from this book that have seen use in my game to date are a soul archer PC, a metal elf PC, a water elf cohort, and the use of attendant options from this book.With the exception of the NPCs, the book follows 3.5 convetions. The NPCs use 3.5 rules but follow the pattern of NPCs in the 3.0 DMG.A First LookFormat: 104 page perfect-bound softcover book; 19.95.Art: The cover of the book is decorated by an oil painting of a pair of elves in the wilderness, one bearing a bow atop some stone edifice, and the other bearing a sword. The cover art is by Liz Danforth.The interior is black and white with art by longtime RPG illustrator Liz Danforth as well as more recent veterans Jennifer Meyer and Stephanie Law, who contributed to Green Ronin books such as the Book of the Righteous. Overall, the artwork is very nice. Though Liz Danforth's art remind me nostalgically of older RPG works such as the Citybook series and some Traveller books, overall I find that Meyer's and Law's work are more detailed and stylistic.Layout: Two column layout throughout. The book uses a conservative body text font size, but the  paragraphs are double spaced and there is a large leader space between the lines. Font choices are good, and overall the book is easily read.A Deeper LookThe book is organized into six chapters, an appendix, and an index.The first chapter, Way of the Forest is mostly concerned with elven racial variants and religion. As with Hammer & Helm, there is some discussion on how to use the race and mix and match concepts, but the discussion of racial stereotypes is much briefer. However, what it lack in fledgeling concepts in makes up for with complete racial statistics. In addition to a fully fleshed out PHB style description for Wood Elves, this chapter introduces new elves subraces.One major concept in religion and subraces is that of a variant arrangement of the elements. Wind, fire, and water are three elements recognized by elven religion, but much as with Chinese mysticism, wood and metal are recognized as fundamental elements.This concept is used as the basis for the elemental elf subraces. Each elemental elf subrace corresponds to one of the elements under this alternate arrangement: wind, fire, water, metal, and wood; for the last, there are racial statistics for wood elves as an elemental elf type that matches their powers. The elemental elves have considerable powers in terms of statistics modifiers, spell like abilities, and other abilities. All of the elemental elf races have an ECL modifier of +3 to pay for it.In addition to the elemental elf, there is also an elven subrace known as the feral elves, elves that have evolved (or devolved) to a more wild state. They have minor spell resistance to arcane magic (having rejected it), rage, and tracking as racial abilities. Also, at 8th level, they gain the ability to shapechange into the form of a feral beast known as the nugaran. This temporarily provides the feral elf with a number of benefits such as boosted physical statistics, natural attacks, and bonuses to certain skills. I wasn't enamored at the idea of using the feral elves as a PC race, but I think they would make the interesting subject of an adventure as a cursed race that the players initially only know of as beasts.Two major deities are introduced here, Prielghari and Worranak. Prielghari is known as the five in one and is the worshipped among the elemental elves. Prielghari can be revered as any of the five elements (though wood is viewed as a "summation" of the other four aspects), each with access to different domains. Worranak is the deity of the feral elves, and the chaotic embodient of nature's fury.The second chapter covers skills and feats. There are no new skills or skill categories, but there are new uses, such as new tricks for training animals via Handle Animal.A more controversial new use is spellblending, an application of the Spellcraft skill. Spellblending allows a spellcasters to "gain access" to a spell not on her list by spending time and making a spellcraft check (similar to researching a new spell). It's not to clear what "gain access" means in this context, but judging from the sample text, it seems to mean adding the spell to your spell list. This is pretty potent; I felt like using spellbleding for a one time use might have been a more balanced take. However, to spellblend spells of over 2nd level requires feats listed later in the book.Among feats, there are the normal bevy of wood elf themed feats, and two new categories of feats: blood magic and soulbond.The basis of Blood Magic is the feat of the same name, which allows the character to cast a limited number of spells per day as blooded spells. Such spells are more potent, having a bonus to save DC, spell penetration, and damage. However, the spell damages the character, and the higher level the spell, the higher damage. Additional feats allow the character to add metamagic feats to blooded spell for no additional cost beyond the blooded cost.The basis of Soulbond feats is the Soulgift feats. Taking the soulgift feat requires that the character undergo a ceremony (that costs gp and xp) that binds the character's soul to a recipient. The soulgift feat allows the characters in the soulbond to sense one another's presence as long as they are on the same plane, gives bonuses when near the recipient of the soulgift, but the character receives a penalty against any magic from the recipient. Additional soulbond feats allow more bonuses when near the recipient of the soulgift; other feats present more game (and plot) possibilities with respect to soulgifts and soulbonds.Other feats enhance other aspects commonly associated with wood elves. Sword wind and spear wind allow extra attacks with the listed type of weapon, a bit like a flurry of blows. Nimble feet is a dual bonus type stat that adds to the tumble skill and opposed trip rolls. Various elemental elf bloodline fears grant mundane wood elves some of the abilities of their more exotic relatives.Similar to many Green Ronin books, Bow & Blade has magical and martial art styles similar to those presented in Oriental Adventures. The basic concept is that if you have the right combination of feats and skills, you get a mastery benefit with no further cost. For example, by mastering the Flame Dance, you learn to deal extra damage with fire spells, and in mastering Longarrow, you increase the range increment of a bow. As I mention in my old Oriental Adventures review, my primary concern is that with enough of these style masteries, it would become easy to master several overalapping styles.There are seven new prestige classes in the book. Some of the prestige classes have different sets of entry requirements, called paths. In some cases, the character receives different benefits depending upon which entry path is taken (a bit like the dark dancer in Plot & Poison). The prestige classes are: -Initiate of the Ashen Path: These are crazed pyromaniacs and masochists who like to be burned; not exactly what I expected from a book on wood elves. The gain resistance to fire, a rage like ability when burned, and fire related attack abilities. The higher level abilities of the class don't seem very potent for a 10 level class, and it probably could have safely afforded a fast attack bonus advancement. -Lifeweaver: One of the central concepts presented earlier in the book is that the wood elves believe that divine and arcane magic were once one and should be again. This class is a representation of that. The Lifeweaver is a 14 level prestige class similar to the mystic theurge, but more targeted at druid/wizards instead of cleric/wizards. The spell level advancement slower than the mystic theurge but has other class abilities like spontaneous cure and lifesense. This makes the class both more balanced and more flavorful. -Metallurgic Savant: Another class I wasn't exactly expecting, but understandable given the elemental elf angle presented earlier. The metallurgic savant can change the properties of metal, changing the material of the weapon for DR purposes, or making an object made of metal very brittle. -Soul Archer: A bit more like what I was expecting to see, the soul archer bonds a bow to themselves magically through a ritual. With their bonded bow, the soul archer gains bonuses, and eventually learns class abilities useful with the bow, such as seeking arrows, arcane eye arrow, and so forth. -Speardancer: The speardancer is, as the name implies, a warrior type class that is adept at fighting with the spear. Most class abilities are techniques that the character can use one per round with a variety of different benefits, such as changing the damage type of the spear or providing dodge bonuses, or threatening adjacent creatures with a longspear. -Wildheart Fanatic: This brief three level class is a highly dedicated rager. The class loses charisma and constitution points in exchange for a very fast BAB progression. I personally don't find the class appealing, but at the same time I fear it is abusive because its fast attack bonus could be used to fast track entry requirements for certain prestige classes and feats. -Wildsinger: The wildsinger is something of a druid/bard hybrid. The wildsinger learns wildsongs as it advances. Like bardic abilities, these are keyed to perform skill ranks, and provides benefits in a wilderness environment, like easing movement or turning plant creatures.The fourth chapter provides new creatures that are allied with wood elves or live in the same sylvan forests. The children of the wood is a small fey creature allied to the wood elves; the creature entry is accompanied by a monster class in the same vein as savage species, making them more reasonable as PCs. Other creatures include the spirit cat and the vine corrupted template. Vine corrupted creatures become plants and are hostile, twisted entities of the forest.New spells and domains populate the magic chapter. The new spells are listed for all of the core spellcasting classes. Also, the list of additional spells for druids is also applicable to shamans (from Green Ronin's Shaman's Handbook), and there is another list for witches (from Green Ronin's Witch's Handbook.There is also a list of elf affinity spells. Similar to Hammer & Helm's clanheart magic (or for that matter, corrupt and exalted spells in publications by Wizards of the Coast), the spells are added to the spell list of all eligible characters of all spellcasting classes. Unlike clanheart magic, there is not feat required; a character need only be an elf.The new domains are wood and wild.A sampling of the spells include: -Canopy Walk: This spell lets you be like the elves in anime movies! Canopy walk allows the character to tread in the canopy of trees as if it was common ground. -Earth barrier: This spell summons a whirling barrier of earth and rocks that protect the character from damage like a high powered stoneskin, granting hardness instead of DR (I don't know why they didn't just phrase is as DR X/-, as hardness typically refers to objects.) -Fareyes: This simple spell quarters distances penalties to spot checks. -Hail of Arrows: This spell conjures a rain of magic arrorws, which can have cold iron, silver, good, or evil qualities. -Magic investure: This spell augments the next spell that the recipient casts, adding to save DCs, caster level checks, or adding the effects of one or more of several metamagic feats. -Spellbraid: When cast, the caster selects two spells the he can cast. The character can cast those spells with a single action until the spellbraid spell expires.The equipment chapter provides a variety of mundane and magical equipment used among wood elves. As you might expect for an elf book, there are a number of special and alchemical bows and arrows. Other weapons include a variety of double-grip weapons, exotic weapons which can be used either as double or reach weapons. New special materials includge dream silver, which acts as if it were made of both cold iron and silver.Arrows seem to head up the magic item parade as well, with such exotic arrows as arcane eye arrows and spellstriking arrows (which can actually be used to counter a spell.) Another major item type are charms, single use wondrous items that grant a variety of benefits.The appendix, like other Races of Renown books, provides a number of stock NPCs. Each stock NPC type is ultimately multiclassed and has 20 levels of progression, and follows the pattern of the 3.0 DMG closer than the 3.5 DMG (which has less complete, more customizable NPCs).ConclusionA designer (I forget who) once said that elves fall into three major archetypes: children of the woods, an ancient and aloof arcane race, or long lived humans. I think many books regarding elves suffer from dividing their focus between those three archetypes. Bow & Blade's focus on the more sylvan style of elf gives it a stronger flavor than other elven supplements.While I don't think that the book is quite as strong as Hammer & Helm and Plot & Poison, overall I was pleased with the effort, and the book is in keeping with the usual Green Ronin high quality standard. Bow & Blade has a nice blend of traditional elf goodness and new ideas that keep the concept fresh.I have been using races, classes, feats, and spells from this book in my campaign, and so far they seem interesting, balanced, and useful. The only things I have reservations about is the wildheart fanatic and (to a lesser extent) the initiate of the ashen path. I find the elemental elf races, and the soul archer and lifeweavers classes great additions to the game.Overall Grade: A--Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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