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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2010112" data-attributes="member: 1129">The Complete Monstrous Fighter’s Compendium is a supplement for the d20 system that promises to evolve the way we play monsters.  It fails.If you own Green Races, this book has virtually no new art.  It may actually have no new art, but I’m not going to do a page by page, illustration by illustration comparison.  And the Green Races map is the same computer generated dark gray scale one that’s difficult to read.Second, if you own Green Races, about fifty pages of this material will seem very familiar to you because the races covered here are the same.  It tackles the stuff left out of Green Races.  See, Green Races did a paragraph of the race, the background, regions, culture, advancement and PrC.  Here, we get a different paragraph of background information, personality, physical description, relations, alignment, lands, religion, language, names, adventurers, racial motivation and racial stats.  Different but similar information.What about the game mechanics?  Well, it’s not looking good in this department either.  No racial level modifications for one thing.  Everything looks to start off per normal. First level troll anyone? Uneven bonuses for stats for several of the races.  This is a case where if they insisted on putting monstrous racial stats into the book, they should’ve went with the stats by the established companies like Green Ronin and Fantasy Flight Games.By the time you get through the races, you’ve now up to the classes.  It starts off with the core classes, providing brief details on how the races fit into those niches.  Not a lot of paladins and monks but lots of barbarians and fighters.  For a book about Fighter’s, I’m pondering why it’s included information on the other classes like bards, rogues, sorcerers and wizards, but hey, perhaps its for completeness.  One nice touch was the notes on the prestige classes from the Dungeon Master’s Guide.  Of course some of the information is obvious like only duergar being dwarven defenders and some I don’t agree with.  For example, the half-orc has a long history of being associated with the assassin concept and here, it’s given to the derro and drow.Four new classes try to break the mold of the standard.  We get the Freak, a humanoid that continues to mutate, gaining benign and hindering mutations like mute or natural weapons.  We can look over the pikeman, a warrior type whose strength lies in numbers as they master the pole-arms to form units in an army.  The Tunnel Rat, a survivor of the underground digging expeditions that always knows his way in the underground ruins.  Last, we get the Twisted, beings touched by the gods that have very minor spellcasting ability but are blessed with divine powers like damage reduction and touch hide.The new prestige classes don’t break a lot of new ground either.  The Chief’s Fist is basically a champion type of PrC that is loyal to the lord or leader.  The Clan Leader is a warlord type.  These are PrC types that have been done in many products ranging from AEG’s Monsters to Heroes of High Favor Half-Orcs.  Some of the PrCs do stand out in terms of placement though.  For example, who would associate something like the Fortress Master, a specialists of engineering, to be a green race?  As with previous books, the GM should keep a close eye on the abilities of the PrCs and determine their appropriateness ahead of time.  For new Skills, we see some that shouldn’t be here.  Take Handle Large Animal and Handle Large Avian.  Shouldn’t this just be standard sub-uses of the Animal Handling skill?  Oration allows the character to give great speeches, but could this be handled by one of the other core skills?  Yes.  Some skills have some new use though.  Take Tactics, it allows the user to take command on a battlefield.In terms of new feats, we have goods like Battle-Blessed where the character takes less damage in combat due to his ability to resist damage and Hard to Kill, where the character automatically stabilizes when dropped below 0 hit points.  Of course we have the dreaded +2 to two skills feasts here too like Close to Nature and Grim Demeanor.  It’s a mixed bag at best that GMs will have to go over with a fine toothed comb to be sure it fits into their campaign style and power level.Those looking for something a bit nonstandard in terms of weapons and armor have new equipment like acid darts and ogre’s blade.  Nothing spectacular here, especially if you own the Sword & Fist book as the Ogre’s Blade might as well be the Fullblade.  More interesting are the special items like gobrocket, a small signaling rocket or the night helms that basically act as sunglasses for the green races.A few new magic items help round out the equipment section like the Mark of the Dragon Favored, a suit of chainmail that grants the user some bonuses as long as he doesn’t attack a dragon or the Greatclub of the Ogre Kings, a weapon that’s strength lies in shattering other objects.Strangely enough, the book includes several new spells as well.  We’ve got Battlefield Doppelgangers that creates soldiers, Corpse Burn, a spell to prevent corpses from being raised or reanimated, and Wall of Fear, a spell that creates an invisible wall that pulsates fear within 20 feet of it.  A few other spells help round out this section like Illusory Troops, Imbue Elemental Energy and Curse of Thin Blood.The last section is a collection of various information that helps the players and GM ‘play’ the Green races.  This ranges from notes on religion for the different races to ageing tables, height and weight tables, motivations, and using these creatures in a standard campaign as opposed to the Green Races world.For me, the race section was badly done.  No ifs, ands or butts.  AEG’s Monsters book wasn’t the greatest, but it beats this hands down.  The real meat of the book for me was the other crunchy bits, but even there, I’ll have to playtest these pieces as I’ve found many FFE products overpowered.  As an idea generator, it’s expensive and if you’re really looking for a book on playing monsters, there are other choices to consider.  Here’s something else to consider.  While the book isn’t overpriced at $24.95 for 128 pages of hardback, there is a lot of competition that puts out hardbacks with more pages for the same amount of money that has all new art and content and is better playtested.  While the layout is good and editing is passable, the book wastes space.  A splash page to start off with, a credits page, a table of contents page, a preface, an introduction, a two page spread of a map that should’ve been left in the Green Races book, and two more pages for the OGL and the D20 License.  Others could’ve got that down to about three pages at most.For fans of the Green Races campaign setting, this will be a useful toolkit.  Others may want to stay clear of it.</blockquote>

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