Campaign Planner 3: A Playtest Review
Once again, as with Campaign Planner 2, I was slightly involved with the creation of this product, so feel free to take my ruminations with a grain of salt. That said, I admit to being further biased by an addiction to forms. (I still use forms from the old TSR Dungeon Master’s Design Kit...)
I will be using fewer of theses sheets than in the previous Campaign Planner releases, they are more specialized. But when they are needed they are needed, so when the circumstances to use them come up I will doubtless pull them out, they are just not quite as commonly used. Nevertheless they sit in my three ring binder for when they are needed.
A good number of the sheets are dedicated to customizing the character classes in a campaign. Sheets for new and variant core classes cover 7 of the 32 pages in this product. Right now I am not creating new or variant base classes, but they look well suited for the job. The sheets listing spells and spells per day as well as psionic powers are shared with the three and a half that cover Prestige Classes.
Unlike the pages for base classes I have used the PrC forms and the sheets that are used for spells from the base class sheets. I have to admit that I used these sheets as a temporary measure, scribbling on them at a fast food restaurant while eating, then transferring the info to my word processor at home. This is one of the reasons I like forms, they are more portable than my desktop computer is. Having the points listed also forces me to be a bit more complete than I might be with a blank sheet of lined paper. The classes are not going to see use for a while, I created them to fill a niche in my Iron Kingdoms game that is currently on a back burner while the setting book wends its way to me. However I had the idea right then and having the sheets made it much easier to record them on the spot.
Sheets for designing new spells and new psionic powers also cover several sheets, I have used the spell sheets, but do not use psionics, so I don’t have an opinion on the latter. The former however is well designed, covering both sides of a page, with much of the basic information handled by tick boxes. More sheets cover variant spell component rules from Ronin Art's 101 Spell Components, WotC's Unearthed Arcana, and the DMG. Not being used in my current game, when I get back to running my Iron Kingdoms game I will be detailing some, since I find the idea interesting.
Sheets for Skills, Feats, and uses for Action Points are also handy, I have used the Feats sheet and the Action Points sheet for my OGL Steampunk campaign, and found them convenient. Like the PrC sheets they were a temporary measure, but a very good one to have. The Action Point sheet has seen more use than the feats, since I have come up with several uses for them in my OGL Steampunk game that are not covered in the main book.
A single page for handling new abilities for magic arms, armor, and shields has room for 3 items, I have used one to record a reversion to an a special ability that had changed between D20 3.0 and 3.5. (I prefer the older version of the Wounding ability.)
The forms handling weather, starvation, thirst, and drowning have also seen use, all in the same session! The party was not well equipped for tromping around the Dartmoor I fear. Three sheets are used to handle weather, one each for cold, hot, and temperate conditions. Aside from referencing weather effects from the DMG these pages can be used with any game, and a simple system is provide for for generating weather on the fly.
Drowning/suffocation and starvation/thirst, share a single sheet, which is enough. One oddity, the starvation sheet has lines for six characters, while drowning can handle a party of seven. I have six players, but I did sort of wonder why the different numbers for each sheet.
A form for handling ships for Corsair, Seas of Blood, or Book of the Sea is provided, though only Corsair is mentioned it works without any modification for Seas of Blood, and with a very little work handles Book of the Sea just fine. (You have to double up information on one line, but there is plenty of room to do so - Book of the Sea adds a Breach chance to weapons.) I have not yet used the sheet, but if I’d had it just a few weeks before it came out I would have used six of them in a single go.
Creatures of Legend is for recording those creatures such as dragons that have legends and rumors that span continents and centuries. If you want to have more information than Ancient Red Dragon this sheet is quite useful, and has spaces to record what Bardic Knowledge may reveal at different DCs. Since I want the truly awesome creatures of my worlds to have legends I found this immediately useful.
And finally the sheets I have used most frequently out of the set - Urban Events, and Adventure/DM Review.
Urban Events are those occurrences great enough to shake a city, and records what the event is, its impact, and what the various factions do about it. A completed sample is provided, but the sheet is very self explanatory. If you want Godzilla to attack Tokyo this is the sheet you will need. Though the sheet assumes that the events are fairly generic I have found it more useful to tailor the event to the situation. The sheet works fine for both uses, and is generic enough to be used with non D20 games.
DM/Adventure Review is a feedback form for the players to fill out when an adventure is finished, describing likes, dislikes, and problems. For playtesting this sheet is of immense use, and like the Urban Events sheet is generic enough for nearly any game.
Looking over the sheets that I have filled out I realize that I have used more of them than I had thought, with most of the unused ones being confined to base character classes and psionics. Some have seen a great deal of use, in the case of the playtest sheet I have over two dozen of them filled out by my players. So I would have to say that I have found this product very useful.
A fillable forms version of this is not yet available, but I will keep hoping!
*EDIT* And of course, the day I post this the fillable forms version comes out... timing is the heart of irony.
9 out 10 stars, or 5 out of 5.
