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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2010825" data-attributes="member: 172">Cry HavocCry Havoc is a book in Malhavoc Press's "event book" series that describe how to integrate world shaking events in your game. The prior two book discussed how to integrate the death of a god and meteor strike into your game. Cry Havoc, on the other hand, introduces a more commonplace but still significant event: war.Cry Havoc is written by Skip Williams (the so-called "Sage" that had a hand in designing the 3e rules and is responsible for the monthly rules clarifications article in the Dragon) and does take into account the revised edition rules.A First LookFormat: This review is based on the PDF distribution, which is 140 pages, include the front and back cover pages and a few ad pages. The PDF has a "cover price" of $13, but is available at RPGnow for $10.Layout: Typical for malhavoc PDFs: ink-conservative pages, conservative body text font, two column layout. Makes good use of sidebars and has some convenient "checklists" like the prior two books.Art: Cover art by WotC alumni artist Todd Lockwood, depicting an armored warrior bearing a banner, standing over the corpse of some inhuman creature. The interior is black and white, with art by Eric Lofgren and Kieran Yanner. Overall, the art quality is good. Though I am generally a fan of Yanner, I think I liked his work in Mindscapes a bit better.A Deeper LookCry Havoc does have some normal event book sort of stuff in it that address changes in the campaign, implementing the event, and that sort of thing, but a lot less than the prior event books do. This could be good or bad, depending on your persepective; people slammed AEG's war for telling them stuff they already know; Cry Havoc presents these sorts of things more as a useful laundry list of things to consider rather than a wordy retelling of why people might fight.The bulk of this book is the combat system and permuatations and additions to it.Just like most other mass combat systems for d20 (be it Mongoose's Quintessential Fighter, AEG Swashbucling Adventures and War, Green Ronin's Testament, etc.), it handles mass combat by creating statistics for units and treating them as individuals and running them much as a single character in d20. Also similar to many such system, it adds a morale mechanic to the game.The two notable differences from the pack of these types of systems in Cry Havoc seems to be:1) It drifts a little further from an analog of individual combat than most others. For example, instead of keeping weapon damages, it converts them to points, and then instead of simple to-hit rolls, you roll a d20 and add modifiers as normal, but then you cross reference it with AC on a table that might remind you of AD&D 1e.2) It handles a lot more details. For example, it addresses things like terrain, combat engagement, etc. In fact, it is these extensive details that make the combat section as large as it is.However, despite the level of detail, I frequently see it cutting corners, like rounding off in unit calculations before adding, having a linear increase in unit size result in a linear increase the facing of the unit, which results in a more than linear increase in AREA.The book also has a larger army combat type of resolution system. It is more abstract, and the kind of thing the market is more lacking (as noted above, there are many sets of skirmish level rules out there already). However, it doesn't utilize the familiar d20 combat tropes. Instead, it lets you crunch the numbers regarding d20 statistics of your army and turn them into a more general combat power number, modify it according to factors like morale, fortifications, and other tactical advantages and drawbacks, and then has a simplified system for determining victory, casualties, etc. (Which does use the basics of the d20 system, just not the combat mechanics.)Of course, it has the usual bevy of feats, spells, and prestige classes you would expect in a product like this... done with the usual level of precision you would expect from the man who is regarded as the "Sage" of the d20 system. The battlefield magic chapter, in addition to notes describing how magic affect the unit combat system, introduces a few spells affecting morale and protecting characters on a unit scale.  The feats and skills chapter includes feats that assist in leading or fighting alongside members of a unit, such as infectious courage.The prestige classes are particularly suited for large-scale combat. The Death Dealer revels in the gore of mass combat, and gains abilities that make it closer and closer to some sort of manifestation of death, such as death blow and frightful presence. The Knight Commander is a more typical warrior-leader type that gains abilities to inspire those under his command. The Shieldmate favors offense over defense and are intended to be reliable shield men who protect the flanks of their leaders.ConclusionThe heart of Cry Havoc is the unit combat system. It is the most detailed unit combat system of this sort I have seen to date, taking into account many aspects of combat that similar systems gloss over. Personally, I think that the unit combat system would not be the one I would choose to run mass combats in D&D, leaning towards the OMCS (from the Quintessential Fighter) or the Mercenaries system instead. The lavish details Skip provides are exhaustive, but are a bit wargamerish and has a level of detail and required attention beyond what I would really want to consider in a D&D game. However, if you like such details, you may find Cry Havoc to be just what you are looking for.However, the Army combat system is just what the doctor ordered and I will be using it should I decide to start another war based campaign. Unlike the unit combat system, there are few systems on that handle things on this scale, and I think that many DMs will find it of benefit if they wish to randomly determine the outcome of major conflicts without going into too much detail and still factoring in the relevant abilities and tactical conditions that face the involved armies.The classes and supporting material are well put together, but are not nearly as inspirational or unique as the same sort of materials in the previous two event books.Overall Grade: B- -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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