E.N. Guilds - Banking Guild

[HellHound]

Written by: Robert Sullivan
Art by: Joe Minns

If you thought banks were all about holding your character's wealth, think again. Add to your fantasy world a system of banking little before explored. Here is the glimpse into a complex guild where wealth can influence not only adventurers, but nations.

From E.N. Publishing comes a new line of books: E.N. Guilds. Starting the series off, we bring you the Banking Guild. Enter the world of fantasy financing as never seen before. Adventuring parties can now take out loans, buy life insurance, invest in stocks and fund expensive quests. You'll never look at fantasy banks the same way again.

E.N. Guild books bring you a resource of knowledge and crunchy rules. This first fully bookmarked pdf venture into the secrets of fantasy guilds brings you 26 pages of material ready to use immediately.

This e-book includes:

• A detailed overview of true banking, stock exchange, and insurance.
• A new variant each for Knowledge and Craft skills involving money, and one new feat.
• Two new prestige classes.
• Three new spells and a new monster (the lead ooze).
• Magic bank vaults and alternative currencies.
• A brief glimpse at the gods of Theft, Commerce, and Greed.

When you purchase this product, you receive a zip file containing two editions of the PDF. One is extensively bookmarked for on-screen use, and the second is designed for easy printing.

 

[Crothian]

Banking Guilds

This is one of the books that I have really been looking forward to seeing. It is rare that I see a book come out about my job; I work in a bank and have for many years. MY father was in insurance and my sister is in investments so I have a bit of real world knowledge on the subjects here though I am far from an expert. I am not expecting the book to be as complex as the modern day Banking Industry is. But I do hope that it covers a good amount of the basic sand makes reasons for them to be in the game. I am also a big fan of Guilds and using them in the game. So, this product has a lot of potential use for me.

EN Guild Banking Guild is the first in a new line of books by EN Publishing cover all sorts of guilds. EN Publishing is well known for their many PDFs and usual high quality of work. The twenty nine page PDF has two different formats one designed for print and the other for on screen viewing. The one designed for print is simple two column lay out with all the art but still really easy to print out. The on screen one is very nice to look at and really easy to read. The art is all really nice with some very interesting pictures. The book is well book marked and really has good production values all around.

The book starts with a simple introduction stating that this book is not going to accurately reproduce the modern financial situation nor is it going provide a complete financial system for a fantasy game. The book also has a few common banking terms and their meaning. It is not by any mean a complete least as bank jargon can get kind of bad at times, but it will help with a basic understanding of what is presented in this book.

The banking guild is composed of three separate areas of banking, stock exchange, and insurance. It has an expensive membership, apprenticeship option, many benefits and titles for its people. A nice side par covers the historical aspects of banking starting in Babylon and hitting a few different time periods through the centuries. The stock exchange portions can get a little complicated. There is a lot of potential money to be had as there is an example of an adventuring group that makes three hundred times their initial investment. That would of course be an ideal situation and does require luck as well as skill. The insurance section is rather interesting. There is the normal property type of insurance but that probably will not come up a lot in a normal campaign. But the life insurance polices that can include resurrections for characters very well might. This can get rather expensive as it includes having the characters body teleported back to a church and then the raise dead or other spell being cast their.

The next chapter deals with more normal rules like skills feats, and classes. The two skills of Knowledge Financing and Craft Handle Money though have a very odd use allowing their ranks to be added to other skills for specific situations. I am not a fan of that as that can really give some big bonuses even for not so high level characters. There is a feat called money shoot and despite the name it is actually pretty cool. It is the ability to use a coin to intercept an arrow or other missile weapon in flight.

There are two prestige classes in the book. The first is the Roving Accountant a caster that is good at divination and appraisals. They get a lot of appraisal abilities over the five levels of the class. They continue to get full spell casting ability and pretty good skills and skill points. The other class is called the Venture Capitalist and it is a fighter that raises money for high risk and high reward efforts. It could be taking over a village or retrieving riches from dungeons. The character usually does not care where the initial investments come from. The requirements of the class really do not fit. It requires the feat of Money shot, Improved Sunder, and Power Attack. It also needs the peaceful encounter with an evil outsider. The feats have nothing to do with the class abilities. I would have though Combat Expertise would be a better fit since it requires an intelligent score of 13 and this class seems to be a better concept for a smart fighter. Also, the evil outsider but seems odd for a class whose alignment requirement is lawful. Contacting an evil outsider for a class does not seem something a lawful good character would ever do.

The rest of the book covers a lot of different things. There are three new spells. One, Crazy Money, which causes people to spend money without control, a greater version of contingency, and passing wealth that literally makes a person pass wealth out of themselves and it is very painful process. There is a very interesting creature called the lead ooze that turns gold into lead and ruins peoples wealth and can ruin economies.

One of the nice sections deals with vault securities. This is nice and simple means that people will protect their money. I like it because it is also good ideas for protecting magic shops for people who use them. There is a table of exchange rates and new types of currency that different civilizations can use. This is very well done with some great ideas for making coins and valuables vary from place to place. There is a nice side bar here about the gold standard in the real world.

Lastly there is a small section on gods and a sample bank. The gods are not specific gods but it does talk about what gods of commerce, greed, and theft can be like. The bank is nicely described with some adventure hooks in it.

This is a nice book and it does a good job of taking a new idea that is not used in the fantasy game and presenting it in a workable way. Some of these options in here are much better for NPCs then PCs since PCs tend to want wealth now and are not into long term investing. There are all sorts of new twists, motives, and ways to use adventures in here. It can add a new level of complexity to the game dealing with characters that have to worry about exchange rates and have portions of their personal wealth tied up in investments and not able to be used. The life insurance also makes it less likely for characters to have permanent death but it works just as well for the bad guys. I really like this book and plan on getting some good use out of it.

 

[DragonTurtle]

Banking Guild

I was excited to receive a copy of this product to review. I really do think the strength of PDFs lie in the ability to make a niche product that WOTC won’t touch. Not everyone is going to be interested in the idea of a banking guild in there game. However those that are interested and want some ideas there is finally a book that addresses the gap. Banking Guild is a 29 page pdf that comes as two files, one bookmarked and made for on screen reading, while the other will save you ink for printing in a portrait layout.

The book starts by supplying a glossary of common banking terms, this is handy as these words are fairly common but it is entirely possible people don’t exactly know what they mean.

Chapter 1: Guild Overview: This talks about the ranks within the guild, titles, and community involvement. One section they gloss over in a paragraph is the idea of racial variants, writing the differences off as trivial and that for convenience treat all guilds the same. I for one would have liked to see some information on other races, gnomes seem perfect for the role and I think they could have been given a real chance to shine. You also get some more in depth information on insurance, bonds, and loans.

Chapter 2: Guild Secrets, this chapter deals with new skills and a new feat. The skills Knowledge (Finances) and Craft (Handle Money) are not great examples new skills. Knowledge (finances) explains that the character has been trained to handle money, this would probably be better handled by a profession skill. It also allows the character to add its ranks to bluff and sense motive when people are trying to get money out of you. I would prefer to see a synergy bonus given instead, as the follows known mechanics for one skill to add to another. Craft (Handle Money) says the character has the knack to make money but gives no rules on how this skill is suppose to work. What it does do allow the character to add ranks in this skill to bluff, sense motive, performance and profession when the character is trying to get money from those skills. Same argument as above, should be a synergy if you even allow the use of this undefined skill.

The new feat Money Shot, once you get past the name, allows you to deflect missile attacks with thrown coins. The prereqs are pretty high and the skill is only for members of the banking guild. Not sure I can see my bankers having this feat, however I can almost see them using it to foil assassination attempts

Chapter 3: Prestige Classes. I had mix feelings about the inclusion of prestige classes in a book about banking, however the overall topic of the book is about a guild, and prestige classes really should be about organizations so maybe they may fit. After reading the two PrCs, my feelings are mixed. The first is the Roving Accountant, an appraise master, who gets a lot of bonuses to appraise as his main class feature. Strangely the class does not have any ranks in appraise as prereq, instead you need to have lots of knowledge skills, metamagic feats and divination spells. The class is set up for wizards, so I understand that appraise is a cross skill, however a few ranks as a requirement would have been appropriate. Nit pick number two is the class gets a special feature to give them a skill bonus for search, which they don’t even put in the class skills.

The other class is the Venture Capitalist, a lawful warrior who must make a deal with an evil outsider (the why is never explained), the class gets a bonus rank in a number of skills, this again is a weird mechanic, as usually classes will give a modifier to a skill but not a rank. Otherwise the main feature of the class is the ability to take out loans and inspire courage.

Chapter 4: Magic and a Monster. I expected magic in this book to deal with money and protecting vaults. I was halfway correct, 2 of the spells do deal with money, one is a curse causing people to spend their wealth, the other causes people to excrete gold coins. The last spell is Greater Contingency, which seems out of place as it only modifies the existing spell in the PHB. The new monster is the lead ooze, a threat to vaults and treasure rooms as it turns gold into lead. I like the ooze, and the money curse has potential. The spell that causes people to pass wealth from their bowels seems to much like a joke spell for me, however your mileage may vary.

Chapter 5: Deals with protection you might find in a vault, for easy reference I would have like them to include costs for each type of vault. It also lists alternate forms of currency, which is a great idea, although it is strange that under races they include, “this is the normal currency for dragons” and will have that after 5 or 6 different types of currency, I think it may have been less confusing if they said something like races that may use this currency include dragons. It is also strange that dragons would use the same tiny thimbles that gnomes use for currency.

Chapter 6: Is a one page description of gods, that might affect banking, they detail a new god of greed Mammon, but give no details on his favored weapons or domains.

Chapter 7: Is hooks and a sample guild. I really wish they would have expanded on this piece as a drop in guild complete with NPCs would be very beneficial. They do give you some basics, and it is a good start. One thing I found to be bizarre was that the guards are armed with Bohemian Ear Spoons, as there are no stats in the book for this it is a strange attempt to add flavor, at least a side note to treat as lances or spears would be appropriate.

Overview: This is a great idea for a book, and I am glad E.N. publishing is taking the initiative to offer this type of innovative material for those interested. Since this is such a niche product, I think those that are interested would really want a more serious approach to the subject. Chapter 1 is a great beginning to the topic, the attempt to add crunch for the sake of adding crunch comes across a little contrived. I would give this book a 3 only if you are serious about the topic and need a source.