E.N.Arsenal - Two-Bladed Sword

[HellHound]

The E.N.Arsenal strikes again, with volume three, detailing the fictional two-bladed sword, the exotic fighting styles it entails and requires, and those who wield it.

E.N. Arsenal books are "crunch-intensive" - a majority of the PDF is devoted to rules-based material regarding the topic of the book; in this case, the two-bladed sword and variants.

This e-book includes:

• Statistics for two-bladed swords of Tiny through Colossal size.
• The new "drow masters" - trained in the drow fighting academies.
• 9 variants of the two-bladed sword, from two-bladed scimitars, to the sword-dagger.
• 9 Feats for the wielders of these versatile weapons.
• Two fighting styles exclusively for wielders of these deadly blades.
• Three prestige classes dedicated to the weapon.
  • The Keltath Master who wields the two-bladed sword with style, grace and deadly fluidity.
  • The Dual Soulblade, who manifests the mindknife as a double weapon and learns new tricks and powers for it.
  • The Warrior of Annakra, who wields the two-bladed sword with the skill and guidance of an ancient and long-dead warrior.
• Spells & magical weapon enhancements.
• 4 Specific magical two bladed swords, including the Cyclone Sword and the Wrath of the Rider
• Sevesties, the Double-Edged God, a deity of weapons, warfare and metallurgy.

 

[BradfordFerguson]

E.N.Arsenal - Two-Bladed Sword, published by E.N. Publishing, is a PDF product sold on RPGNow.com. For more information about the product itself, you can refer to the link above.


I get no enjoyment out of writing an unfavorable review. It is bound to either hurt someone’s feelings or anger a publisher. I do not read any products with the predisposition that I am going write an unfavorable review.

Poor Layout: The product encompasses 20 pages of content and five of those pages are section headings. For each of the section headings a dark watermark picture is "behind" the text, but the bottom half of the picture is a dark gray which makes the text very difficult to read. There is no printer-friendly version to alleviate this. One of the tables has poor spacing between columns, making it hard to read.

Repeated Art: Besides the border art, there are four pieces of art in the product. While I do not mind too much that there were only four illustrations, it was annoying that each piece was reprinted at least once. One of the illustrations (the section header), appears a total of seven times!

Weak Start: The PDF is based around an absurd weapon, but some of the creations and mechanics are unbalancing and poorly conceived. The two-bladed flamberge allows its user to make a free disarm attack after a sunder attempt (it does not say the sunder must be successful), this makes the weapon superior to the two-bladed sword in the PHB. If you’re really into anime, you might like the two-bladed GREATSWORD that only imposes the monkeygrip penalty without requiring the monkeygrip feat. If your character has strong wrists, they make want to use the two-bladed dagger, and still be able to wield a shield! The Craftsmanship modifiers gave strong bonuses for only a little extra cash. It reprints other d20 feats including the gem, Bull Charge, which gives you two actions for the price of one.

Strong Finish: The poor start to the book really soured my mood, but the book did improve. There are two weapon styles with specific requirements where you can pay XP to gain minor abilities with the weapon. These seem very reasonable, and besides, the moves have cool names. The three prestige classes were good as well, though some of the mechanics are a little clunky (have conditional uses that may be hard to remember), and the requirements for one of them made little sense to me. The Keltath Master of the Two Blades requires the member of the PrC to both be drow and Chaotic Evil, but it's abilities were none too dastardly except for their arachnid names. The Dual Soulblade is a cool PrC.

Since DMs can cheat the rules some, you can use this PDF for NPCs, but I definitely would not let a player use the book in any game I ran.

Likes:
Some good game mechanics.
Dual soulblade. Who would have thunk it?
Good production value approach.

Dislikes:
Poor layout.
Repeated art.
Mostly bad game mechanics.

Score: 7 of 20 (or 2/5)

-----
Bradford Ferguson

 

[Crothian]

Arsenal Two Bladed Sword

There are some weapons that I never see in play. Long swords, hand axes, bows, and crossbows are all weapons that I see being used in my own games and the games of others. The two bladed sword is a weapon I have yet to see used in a game. In fact I have yet to even hear a player think about using the weapon. So, I wonder why EN Publishing has decided to devote a full book to the subject. In fact of the four books in this series they have published (the others being the Whip, the Spiked Chain, and the Hooked Hammer) I wonder why they choose these weapons instead of more common and useful ones? It is a rhetorical question, just one of the things that I tend to wonder when reading through these books.

EN Arsenal is a series of books that tackles one weapon and gives new variations, feats, and prestige classes that will greatly enhance the versatility and usefulness of the weapon. The book is written by Alex Jacobs. The PDF is twenty two pages in length and comes nicely book marked. However the art and layout I have a problem with. There are only a few pieces of art in the book but they are used multiple times. I do not mind few books with little art, and I prefer that to seeing the same pieces over and over. Also, in the layout they have some pieces of art designed to be under the text. I really do not like that. The art used is a busy piece and it distracts from the text making the document difficult to read. I know there are lots of really neat things one can do with a layout, but I honestly believe that less is more.

The book starts with a little discussion on the weapon and how it never existed in history. So, the author goes on to invent a possible scenario on how it was created in a fantasy type world, but really gives no concrete answers just speculation. One thing that the author does that is really interesting is to take the Drow race and alter it to be a master of one of these weapons. Now, I would have preferred any race other then the Drow to be used here but I like the presentation of a race a bit different from standard showing different training and abilities reflecting a different up bringing.

There are nine variations of the two bladed sword in the book. There is the bokken like one to be used in training and dealing non lethal damage, and a scimitar one that has the weapons stats of that weapon. The oddest of them is the triple bladed sword. It is dot a double weapon like all the others but has a neat visual of the weapon spinning around while someone is attacking with it. The weapon has the advantage of being effective while making attacks of opportunity. There is also a small table of the normal two bladed sword as different sizes.

There are feats and styles to be used with the weapons. Styles are additional abilities gained outside of the normal class and feat abilities. They have prerequisites that can pretty stiff and cost experience points to gain. There are five levels to each of two styles presented here. They are similar in respect to the fighting styles of Quintessential Fighter. There are less then a dozen new feats presented in the book. Some like armor specialization really do not fit the theme of this weapon book. Others like Double Weapon Power that allows one to use full strength bonus with the off hand and make power attacks with it as a one handed weapon are very much in the theme of the book. There is one epic feat that allows both sides of the weapon to be considered two handed weapons thus giving a greater strength bonus for damage and a much better use of power attack.

There are three new prestige classes presented. One is for Drow only, another requires psionic ability, and the third is a really good class for someone devoted to the two bladed sword. There are also some magical spells and magic weapons and items presented here. They seem interesting and can really help a character devoted to this style and weapon.

EN Arsenal Two Bladed Sword takes a very uncommon weapon and gives it some interesting abilities and options. It takes advantage of the psionic and epic rules which it is good to see being built upon. But in the end I have a headache from reading the book. The pictures under the words create an eye strain and make the book just not fun to read.

 

[Pinotage]

E.N.Arsenal: Two-Bladed Sword

E.N. Arsenal: Two-bladed Sword is the third volume in the E.N.Arsenal line from E.N.Publishing. This volume is devoted to the two-bladed sword, including alternative types of two-bladed swords, fighting styles, feats, spells, weapon enhancements and prestige classes. This pdf has a page count of 22 pages, 19 pages of which are devoted to the actual content of the pdf. E.N.Arsenal: Two-bladed Sword normally retails for $4.95. This review was done as part of Crothian's Review Project.

Initial Impressions:

I've seen several characters in games I've played in or run use the two-bladed sword, and so I was expecting a good read from this pdf. E.N. Arsenal: Two-bladed Sword comes as a single pdf file with a full complement of bookmarks. The structure of the layout is well done - there's a table of contents, handy table listing page numbers of all the tables in the pdf, and the tables themselves are helpful and concise. Unfortunately, the rest of the layout is a bit of an eye-strain. A single piece of art has been used as a 'background' to a lot of the text, and, given that it's a black and white image in a whole host of shades of gray, it makes it annoying to read the text that's printed on top of it, often resulting in one having to strain closer to read properly. This is repeated several times throughout the pdf at the start of each new section, and was growing weary towards the end.

On top of this horrible layout issue, the art pieces are repeated throughout the book in a variety of different ways. The pieces themselves are good, but by the end of the pdf I'd seen enough of the same piece to be glad I'd finished reading the pdf. I don't normally mind repeated art that much, but the combination of repeated art and the repeating of the 'background' art both as a background to certain pages and as art made it a bit too much. The writing itself is generally good, with the occasional error and typo in, such as 'sowrd' for 'sword' and silly things like 'at will three time per day'. In the end, the reading of this pdf was rather less enjoyable than I'd hoped, but let's take a look at the content in more detail.

The Details:

E.N.Arsenal: Two-bladed Sword is divided into five chapters, each detailing a new aspect of the sword to expand on its use in game. While not the most prolific weapon in d20 games, I think it's good to see infrequently used weapons get some treatment, thereby offering characters a different choice to the more traditional weapons.

Chapter 1 - Introduction: The first chapter is devoted to the description and properties of the two-bladed sword, and covers such things as properties for different size weapons, issues in storing two-bladed swords via sheathing, and racial preferences in the use of said weapons. By far the most prevalent users of the two-bladed sword turn out to be none other than the drow, and a new drow racial variant, the drow master, a graduate from an elite drow fighting academy, is presented to cater for this preference. I was a little disappointed to find the drow selected here - they seem to be the staple choice for many things and I'd hope to see other creatures get a chance to 'shine', as it were. Certainly I could see numerous other humanoid creatures use the two-bladed sword (bugbear, hobgoblin, normal elf), and I'd have been happier to see them than the drow.

Chapter 2 - Weapon Variants: The second chapter deals with variants of the two-bladed sword such as the two-bladed scimitar, two-bladed greatsword or two-bladed dagger. Most of these are just minor variations to the properties of the two-bladed sword itself such as the scimitar variant increasing threat range at the expense of blade damage. There are some rather odd combinations to visualize, such as the two-bladed greatsword or the three-bladed sword. I think there are a number of balance issues here as well, such as the two-bladed flamberge allowing, as a free action following a sunder attack, an additional disarm attack. Other weapons are presented that are even more obscure than the two-bladed sword, and I can't imagine why they were included in the pdf if there's little reason to ever use them. The two-bladed greatsword or two-bladed longsword spring to mind as examples of this. The latter, for example, requires a fortitude save each round to avoid fatigue, while the greatsword variant gives permanent attack penalties and penalties to confirming critical hits.

The chapter continues with craftsmanship, or ways in which two-bladed swords can be altered, to, for example, make it lighter. I think the cost of the additional benefits is far less than the value of the benefit received - for example, by spending 600 gp to make the weapon lighter, you can reduce the two-weapon fighting penalties by 1. Or, by spending 200 gp, you can get a shield bonus from the weapon's hilt. A bit of a mix-matched chapter, with some interesting ideas in the weapon variants, but some dubious mechanics.

Chapter 3 - Feats and Fighting: The third chapter starts by presenting some advice on tactics before delving into the new feats for two-bladed weapon wielders. There are a variety of different feats, all which focus on strengthening the use of two-bladed weapon fighting. Feats like Double Weapon Power allow you to add full Strength bonus to damage from offhand attacks, while Agile Reposte allows an extra attack on a missed attack of opportunity, and Combination allows you to make another attack with an attack bonus rather than confirm a critical threat. It's a decent mix, but perhaps on the strong side.

The chapter continues with fighting styles, and present two examples of such. These styles take time to learn in the form of actual time and XP, but grant various benefits based on the level of training in any given style. I think the idea is good, but the execution not so. The styles are very feat intensive, and sometimes require feats that many fighters would not consider (Great Fortitude, for example), thereby making the styles less useful. The higher level powers are quite strong as well such as Blood Avenger from the Ingraine's Vengeance style using a two-bladed longsword allowing a character that misses with the primary blade of the weapon to once per round make an attack with the off-hand side as a free action following the miss.

Chapter 4 - Prestige Classes: This chapter deals with three new prestige classes - the Keltath Master (a monk-style two-bladed sword wielder), the Dual Soulblade (a psionic mind blade two-bladed sword wielder) and the Warrior of Annakra (one learnt in the ways of the ancient warriors). The prestige classes build on the material already presented, containing a lot of the ideas already presented. The Dual Soulblade is interesting, but the other two would require careful thought on a DMs part. The Warrior of Annakra for instance has an ability that allows it to take two 5 ft steps in a round or gaining a ghost fighter 8/Warrior of Annakra 7 cohort for a certain number of rounds per day. I think there are some interesting ideas presented, but the execution is not the best.

Chapter 5 - Magic: The last chapter deals with magic. It presents four new spells, such as Hovering Blade allowing the caster who spins his blade to fly or Whirlwind which allows the caster who spins his blade to creature blasts of wind. The remainder is devoted to new weapon enhancements and a new deity, Sevesties, the double-edged god. For a +1 market bonus, you can get a flexing weapon that three times per day allows the wielder to automatically hit with the off-hand side of the weapon if the primary sides misses. This seems much better than flaming or shocking weapons and probably too strong for the +1 bonus.

Conclusions:

E.N.Arsenal: Two-bladed Sword presents a whole host of options for the two-bladed sword, including new weapon variants, spells, prestige classes, feats, fighting styles and more. My overwhelming feeling was the pdf contained some dubious material, particularly material that is presented but does not appear all that usable or may contain balance issues. For an already infrequently used weapon, this didn't leave me with many encouraging thoughts. There is some good material in there, but I'd need to carefully consider balance issues before allowing its use in any game. Based on some horrible layout issues, slightly dubious content and balance issues, I'd grade this pdf with two and a half stars, rounding down to two stars.