Dawnforge, Crucible of Legend, takes the d20 fantasy rules and firmly places them in a mythic time. It accomplishes this by not only introducing new races, classes, and other player game mechanics, but by reworking the standard races and including new options for players to take up a truly mythic path.
Starting with a beautiful sixteen page introduction that’s on slick full color paper, the setting gives player’s a quick overview of what makes Dawnforge different from other settings and stages the reader for a more detailed reading after learning about much of the general background. While the book doesn’t include a fold out map, it does include an interior two page spread that shows three separate continents, Tamerland, Ambria, and Zangala with an up close look at the Kingsmarch, one of the kingdoms on Ambria.
The interior illustrations are handled by artists like Mitch Cotie, William Eaken, Cos Konitotis, Jim Nelson, Scott Schomburg, Mattias Snygg and Tyler Walpole. The art for the most part is high quality and lends itself well to a mythic age. The illustrations of a minotaur straining his vast strength to pull a stone column or the picture of Thorngus, the great white dragon atop his mountain, are powerful. The only problem is that sometimes, despite the talent in them, the pictures are too dark. On page 194 for example, a great illustration of two outer planar entitles is shown but it’s very dark and difficult to pick out the details while on page 207, another illustration, this one of humanoids engaged in combat with the yuan-ti, is impressive, but also difficult to see.
In terms of physical construction, my book has held up well to repeated readings, but the cover does tend to spread itself open when not in the bookshelf. The book is laid out in standard two-column format with excellent use of white space. No blank three quarter pages run rampant here. Unlike some books I’ve seen, this one includes a table of contents and an index to help the reader navigate his way through it. The writing is fairly crisp and easy to read and return to. At 256 pages with 16 full color ones, the book is priced very competitively at $34.95.
When the book describes the races, it puts them firmly into the campaign setting through the background section. The races in this world, even the standard ones like dwarf, elf, and gnome, are much different than their standard counterparts. In this mythic time, the races, as they progress, innately become more the archetype of their race. They do this through racial talents, racial transformations, and ability boosts. The racial talents start at 1st level and every odd level after that up to 9th level. The racial transformations start at 2nd level, and go up every even level up to 10th level. The ability boosts come in at the same time as the racial talents. At 10th level, the character is the archetype of his race, even though other members may have selected different abilities.
Races that are included for player purposes range from the standard, dwarf, gnome, and halfling, with some changes to other old favorites like the elf, which is broken into dawn and night, and humans, being broken into four branches. Those races which we’ve seen before in some aspects, like the lizardfolk, minotaur, ogre, orc, tiefling, and yuan-ti, are joined by the doppelganger as a standard option.
The change to the humans seems an almost standard thing now with the Wilderlands, Scarred Lands and other campaign settings providing guidelines on how the human race mechanically differs among itself while other campaign settings like Kalamar focus on regional differences.
The dawn elves are in essence, high elves. They have many of the standard starting racial traits like +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution with immunity to sleep spells and a +2 racial saving throw against Enchantment spells even as they have low-light vision. Strangely enough, while they gain a bonus to attack with longbows and shortbows, they don’t have automatic proficiency with them. ON the other hand, they do have spell immunity to a arcane spell of 1st level of their choice.
As an example of talents and racial transformations, the dawn elf has two branches of racial talents. The first is true elf, the second arcane mastery. For true, they have spellcasting options and woodland options. Some of these have prerequisites in terms of racial talents that must be taken before others can, and others have level prerequisites. Lesser Spellcasting II for example, requires the elf to have Lesser Spellcasting I, and character level of 7+. In exchange, it allows him to use spells granted by Lesser Spellcasting I twice per day and an extra 1st level spell and a 2nd level spell that he can cast once per day.
In terms of transformations, elves have many options. For example, there is a transformation feat that allows them to select one a bonus feat from dodge, lightning reflexes or iron will. Those looking to improve their spell immunity, can take Improved Spell Immunity and gain immunity to another spell.
In terms of ability boost, the dawn elf gains a +2 to Int at 3rd, a +2 to Dex at 5th and 9th, and a +2 to Cha at 7th level. This doesn’t count their starting modifiers.
As you can see, a 10th level elf from this setting is a bad man. He’s got a total of +6 to his Dex by 9th level and a host of other special abilities to back him up.
The scary thing is, all of the races are like this. This allows a very heroic approach to be taken with the tone of the campaign but also changes the power scale. The book suggests an effective level adjustment of +1 for characters 3rd to 7th level and a +2 modifier for character’s 8th level or higher and I wonder, is it enough?
See, when I look over a campaign setting, I’m always looking for stuff to pilfer for my own campaigns and games. With a book like Eberron, you’ve got stuff like the warforge, mechanical men, that work fairly well with no modifications, in almost any campaign. I know that if I offered my players the chance to take one of these races with all of its benefits that they’d snatch it up in a second and that if I didn’t use the various special abilities, that they’re fairly sub-standard without them. It makes for a great mythic feel for Dawnforge campaigns but I’d be very leery of allowing them outside the base campaign setting.
In terms of classes, I think the book could’ve taken a page from some other campaign settings and provided a quick break down of how the standard classes fit into the setting. However, we’re told almost in passing that two of the new classes, disciple and shaman, are replacements for cleric and druid.
The disciple is an interesting take on the cleric. See, there’s no standard pantheon here, but there are powerful entities, known as Immortals, that are capable of helping those who pay them homage. Disciples cast divine spells, drawn from the cleric’s list but one of their main benefits is divine intervention. The caster makes an intercession check, based on their level, plus 1d20 – immortal’s CR. Ironically, the weaker your patron, the more favor he grants you when you roll high. The intercession check takes the form of a spell level that can affect multiple targets depending on the roll. It’s an interesting take and I can see using it in other settings for ‘little’ gods.
The shaman selects his spells from the druid’s list and gains numerous abilities that correspond to the natural world. Animal companions, spontaneous spellcasting of summon nature’s ally, and ability to craft spell fetishes, even as they use nature sense and wild empathy to thrive in the wilderness.
The shaper is a strange one. Unlike the previous classes, they take the divine power that flows through the world. They’re a bit like a sorcerer in that they have a limited number of spells they can know, but don’t have to prepare their spells in advance. Shapers are a little like clerics in that they have ties to specific ideas, but instead of domains, they have focus. These range from alignment and elemental, to nature and vitality. This covers several domains within, and gives them a granted ability and latter, an advanced ability.
For example, a shaper with the power focus gets a free martial weapon proficiency, and at 10th level, the ability to cast harm once per day. More impressive is the ability to use specialties within his focus. This allows him to use a metagmagic feat without an increase in spell level or casting time.
On the other hand, the spirit adept takes the spiritual energy that flows about and focuses into their bodies. They gain d10 hit dice, all three good saves, medium attack progression, and special spirit abilities relating to their spiritually soaked bones. Part of this is based on special abilities they gain as they progress in levels like bonus feats, while part of it is based on Adept Powers that rely on Spirit Strength. Similar to spells that use spell points. Spirit Sense comes in three levels with an activate cost of 1, 5, and 10, and range from burst of speed (+20 ft for one minute), to Evasive Action, with a +8 to AC and not suffering attacks of opportunity with a 20% miss chance for one minute. A potent class with a wide variety of uses.
In terms of advanced character options, Fantasy Flight Games came up with the Legendary Class, a PrC that goes beyond mere prestige with vast powers available to them in exchange for meeting the requirements and taking all of the levels. One of the most interesting things about these classes is that they select their abilities from a pool and depending on what level in the PrC they select them, the overall ability of that power changes. In addition, there are often more powers than a user can ever select in his five levels. This allows two members of the same PrC to have completely different sets of abilities. One of the most innovative things I’ve seen still.
The one thing I noted though, is the addition of a new requirement, Legendary Path. I’ll come back to that in a moment. Included here are Dawn Archers, masters of the bow, Fleetwinds, couriers that relay messages on the fields of war, Epic General, masters of the battlefield, Icon, leaders of both nations and cults, Master Arcanist, arcane spellcasters who delve deeper into magical understanding, and the Unsuffering, individuals who cannot be stopped through pain alone. It’s a good mix of character types and allows those who want to command nations either at home or on the field of battle to mix it up with those who want to fight on those fields of battle.
Now the legendary paths I mentioned earlier, are detailed. There are six paths, one for each of the primary characteristics. To gain a path, you have to gain legend points, awarded by the GM for doing legendary things. That’s a little too vague for me and they do mention it in a sidebar that if the GM isn’t careful, some character may master legendary paths and gain access to the legendary PrCs before other characters which upsets the balance of the game quickly.
Thankfully, outside of the brief advice on awarding points, there are other requirements that have to be meet including ability score requirements and character level requirements. For example, to gain the 3rd Path, you have to have a natural ability score of 22 and be 9th level. Now with the racial transformations and ability boosts, that’s not a problem, but it does allow the GM to have some guidelines. The bad thing though, is that the legendary path’s grant a +1 bonus to the ability score associated with the path and these bonuses always stack. You also gain a +20 bonus to an ability check, or skill check that uses that ability. This doesn’t count substituting your ability to a certain skill picked by the character. Once again, it pushes the power level without holding the characters back and in this case, not providing any level adjustment advice for the GM.
In terms of new feats, there’s not much. Some exotic shield prociency joins two new magic item forging feats, craft magic pouch and craft spell fetish. More impressive is the wide array of racial exotic weapons. Some of them probably shouldn’t be exotic as opposed to rare. Take the Angel’s Blade. This is a greatsword with a goove cut into the center that is filled with special metal strips to overcome damage reduction. So you could put a silver, adamant, mithril, or even in a more exotic setting, jade core into it. Good idea but defiantly not an exotic weapon.
In terms of magic though, arcane magic isn’t broken down into it’s specialized schools, but rather into four aspects. The four aspects are actually made up of several schools of magic, and there is some overlap. Wizards do focus on a specific aspect, which is known as their bond. That gets rid of all specialists wizards in Dawnforge. Another thing that would’ve been nice to see in a section on how standard classes fit into this setting.
When a character is bonded, he gains penalties and restrictions, such as not knowing more spells outside his bonded aspect than he knows in it, as well as bonuses, like being able to apply a metamagic feat to a spell with no change in the spell’s level.
Those looking to further augment their arcane power should eek out Eldritch Wells. These wells have stats like Strength ,Range of Influence, Associated Spells, Associated Aspect and Aspect Powers, that a character can tap into.
For those wondering what their Immortal patrons can do, they’ve been lumped into the new rules. All immortals share some traits, but all have different abilities depending on what they are. For example, Alharra Dawn-bearer is an Archon, while the Wyrm of Winter is a dragon.
The history of the world is one barely recorded, starting less than a thousand years ago. A small time indeed where some of the races have immortality and no fear of death from aging. Even the current setting date is only 997. In many ways, it’s here that the book loses some of its flavor. While things are indeed new and not everything has been set in stone, for example, we have night elves instead of drow, there are many feelings of other standard events here. Evil nations on the rise, war on the horizon, and the expansion of certain empires.
The book provides background and setting details for many of the areas here, including general overviews, history, racial notes, locations, government, religion, and other important factors like organizations and personalities to add flavor to the campaign setting. GMs can set their campaigns in Anderland, Kingsmarch and the Highlands, Mountain Kingdoms, Sildanyr, Valhedar and Zangala, or the Lands of the Sunset Reach. In this it covers a little over a hundred pages of ideas and locals for the GM to use. One of the things I hate to say is that while it seems very fresh, to me, it seems very familiar.
An ancient empire of Yuan-Ti? A newly discovered land where lizardfolk walk and mistrust those who come to trade with them? A country ruled by dark magics and demon blooded creatures? Very strong elements of Warhammer Fantasy without the dark grittiness that often accompanies it with some homage to Sword & Sorcery bygones. `
For those looking for more ideas and information, we have monsters including how to use normal monsters, unique creatures of the setting, and new creatures. The thing I enjoyed most about the unique creatures is that those introduced here as such, the basilisk and chimera for example, have much weaker counterparts in standard d20 fantasy games. It gives the setting a little more of a unique factor.
One of the things I found a little off is the included adventure, Saga of the Giant Kings. It’s for four 13th level characters. It does introduce the concept of the Legend Quest, an adventure that impacts the world of Dawnforge and rewards characters with legend points for those who complete it. The adventure includes background, getting starting material, question and answer sections, various darkened text to be read aloud and a general flow to the material that includes maps by Ed Bourelle. It’s a brief excursion but does show how things can work for a Legend Quest. Still, a lower level adventure would’ve been more appropriate.
Now this isn’t the first campaign setting to utilize power as a drawing factor. Oathbound does that as well. It’s also not the first campaign setting to try and capture an earlier age feel. Morningstar does that. It is however, one of the first to take the near traditional fantasy of Morningstar and provide a rule set for powerful play.
For those looking for a campaign setting that pits the characters into powerful archetypes of their race and pits them on a powerful path that more strongly resembles standard fantasy, Dawnforge is your best bet.
