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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Simon Collins" data-source="post: 2010306" data-attributes="member: 9860">This is not a playtest review.The Complete Monstrous Fighter's Compendium is a resource for Fast Forward Entertainment's Green Races campaign setting, detailing how to play monstrous fighters, rangers, barbarians, etc. for that setting.The Complete Monstrous Fighter's Compendium is a 128-page mono hardcover book costing $24.99. Margins and font are fairly average. There are regular blocks of white space and aspects such as the OGL, credits and contents seem a bit strung out. The internal art is a mixture of Victorian-style public domain pictures and Tony Parker's work, which seems to vary in style quite considerably for one artist - all the art seems appropriate to the text, but can be uninspiring at times. Writing style is average - "Among most other Green Races they act haughty and arrogant, treating non-hobgoblins in a condescending fashion at best, and as weakling slaves or playthings at worse". Editing seems good, with occasional mistakes.The book starts with a 5-page introduction to the Green Races campaign setting, plus a double-page map of the lands of the Green Races (goblinoids, drow, reptilian humanoids, derro, giants, orcs and gnolls). An overview of fifteen races (and sub-races) of these evil creatures is then given, with passages on personality, physical description, political relations, alignment, lands, religion, language, names, adventurers, racial motivation, and rule-based traits. Five good races - Bronzemen (read Greek culture), southern dwarf, northern elf, Furush (read Egyptian culture), and Yiristri (read Arabian culture) - are also given the same treatment.The section on classes begins with a discussion of each of the core classes for playing one of the Green Races, as well as the prestige classes from the DMG. Four new 20-level classes are introduced:* Freak - mutated version of the race, with both positive and negative deformities and limited (4th level) spellcasting ability.* Pikeman - a number of feat-like abilities and a few bonus feats that enhance formation fighting with pole-arms.* Tunnel Rat - various abilities that enhance underground fighting in close quarters.* Twisted - touched by the evil gods, this class gains steady increases in Strength and more potent Damage Reduction.Twelve new 10-level prestige classes are also presented:* Chief's Fist - bodyguard and part of a brute squad, abilities to defend charge from harm and instill fear in those who may threaten the chief of the tribe.* The Clan Leader - bonus feats, improved versions of Leadership, support and inspiration of allies characterize this PrC.* Driven Spiritualist - a number of powerful magical abilities that allow the PrC to penetrate defences.* The Fortress Master - spells up to 4th level and PrC features revolving round protecting and attacking fortresses. Also gains some bonus spells that can only be cast via runic inscriptions.* Geomantic Engineer - avails of a mixture of necromancy and elemental earth magic to create or destroy buildings by blood sacrifice. Spells up to 4th level available.* Hammerfist - magical item creator that avoids normal time and expense of making magic weapons.* Keeper Of The Song - bard who inflames racial hatred through story and song* The Naturalist - creates various potions, salves, and concoctions as well as bonuses to nature-oriented skills* Road Warrior - seasoned traveller with a variety of travel-oriented feats to choose from and a big reputation.* Weaponmaster - gains proficiencies in ranges of weaponry and can train others.* Woodsman - a druid/ranger/rogue cross with abilities designed to improve solitary wilderness existence (no spells).* Zerkh - super-barbarian with improving hit dice (note the plural), strength, damage reduction, and rages, and bonus feats.Eight new skills are presented - Artillerist (firing ballista and siege engines), handle large animal, handle large avian, inscribe power runes, oration, swinging (through trees, for those with the Brachiation feat), Tactics (improve troops AC), and tunneling. Over 30 new feats are offered, including such feats as Battle Cry, Brachiation (swing through trees), Grim Demeanor, Obnoxious, Siege Engine Proficiency, Read Tracks, Set Spear Against Charge, and Terrifying.In the section on Equipment, we find a few new weapons (e.g. acid dart, barbed lash, wrist crossbow), some torturer's equipment, food and drink (e.g. drow wine, orcish ale), special substances (e.g. alchemically treated drycloak and drytent, gobrockets (goblin rockets that often misfire), and mithril manacles). Various magical items are also offered - e.g. plate armor of the horde (gifts leader with greater influence over troops), elf-bane (+5 longsword that confers negative level and damage points to elves who wield it), rod of slave control, and a worg collar (gives worgs +2 deflection bonus).Six new spells are offered, including Curse Of Thin Blood (confers haemophilia on victim)`, Illusory Troops, and Wall Of Fear.A section entitled 'Playing The Green Races' begins with a section giving a PHB-style overview of the deities of the Green Races campaign setting, on a race-by-race setting. It continues with some advice on name, gender, age, and height and weight. The chapter also looks at the more social elements of the Green races, including racial motivations (and playing against the grain of these. The next section gives a brief overview (with no stat blocks) on six powerful NPCs that rule amongst the Green races. The book ends with some advice on using Green Races characters in other campaign settings.The High Points:For those interested in playing evil races in Fast Forward's Green Races campaign setting, the book gives a good deal of background information and options. Some of these concepts could be used to stimulate ideas for other campaign settings where the GM encourages players to run evil characters from such races as drow, duergar, orc, goblin, gnoll, giant, etc. The equipment section was probably the best for these purposes, particularly the imaginative special substances such as the demon screamer (a very loud whistling contraption that can be used for distractions) and the lantern stone (which glows brightly for a period of time when struck hard against the floor).The Low Points:Again, Fast Forward fails when it comes to their exposition of the d20 rules. Here are some examples:* No ECL's used for any of the races. A little quote from the book will help to explain the philosophy behind this - "In a campaign that focuses on combat, your character will have a distinct advantage over the other characters at lower levels...You can appease their jealousy by role-playing your character in such a way that he does not join in with every combat". Bingo, instant balance.* The Pikeman 20-level class - all the class features of the Pikeman seem oriented towards fighting in co-ordination with a phalanx of other pikemen - not exactly a very appealing class for PCs, or one that can be used in most fantasy campaigns, not even the Green Races setting.* The Driven Spiritualist gets a class feature at 3rd level called Whipping Willow, which allows him to "execute a single melee attack upon every individual...within a 15 ft. radius."* Hammerfist PrC - this PrC neatly sidesteps nasty requirements for magic weapon creation such as time, XP, item creation feats. He also gets the Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting feats for free when fighting with hammers, and gets a Fighter's BAB into the bargain. With the entry requirement for this class being 6th level, the campaign is going to suffer from magic weapon overkill very quickly, and will soon unbalance a campaign.* The Zerkh PrC's Rage feature doesn't state whether his rages stack with those from the barbarian class. Why does his Rage give him a +3 to Strength and Constitution, rather than the barbarian's +4? A +1 Strength bonus every three levels? * The Handle Large Animal skill. What?? I had to go back and re-read the Handle Animal skill from the PHB to see where it restricted animal size. I quote from the PHB: "Use this skill to...teach a tyrannosaur to "speak" on your command". Since birds are also mentioned in the Handle Animal skill description, the Handle Large Avian skill also needlessly duplicates. A few words expanding the Handle Animal skill would have sufficed. Same with Oration - Diplomacy already covers influencing NPC attitudes.* The Nerves of Steel feat grants "a +2 bonus to all morale checks, and receives a +2 bonus to saving throws against fear effects". Morale checks?Throughout the book, rules explanations are either faulty or incomplete (i.e. missing an important piece of information). Despite the covers proclamation that the rules can be used for any setting, they are often specific to the Green Races campaign setting (e.g. the races in the first section do not use standard stats, but those from Fast Forward's setting).Conclusion:Unless you already own and enjoy the Green Races setting and are willing to forgive the numerous rules errors and lack of originality (e.g. the Tunnel Rat class (as a PrC), the Battle Cry feat, several +2 to two skills feats, the Clan Leader PrC), you are likely to find this product one of the poorest on the market. They make no attempt to use such useful SRD/OGC as ECL's or Prestige Races where they would have improved matters. Fast Forward has become renowned for their poor handling of the d20 rules and this is a book that is full of rules. Enough said.</blockquote>

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