Eden Studios' Fields of Blood... is it good?

[shadow]

*hijacks thread*

The one question I have is how easy will it be to convert the stats back to 3e? I'm one of the few people that isn't switching to 3.5e, so 3.5e stats for units and spells really don't do me much good.

 

[Silveras]

*hijacks thread*

The one question I have is how easy will it be to convert the stats back to 3e? I'm one of the few people that isn't switching to 3.5e, so 3.5e stats for units and spells really don't do me much good.

I don't think you will have too much difficulty. Appendix A, listing the core spells for use on the battlefield, will need the most work. You may want to check some of the monster units in Appendix D, but I don't think you will find enough differences to make it worthwhile.

 

[Silveras]

Errata

Some additional Errata:
The Damage Resistance entries for some of the units in Appendix D appear to have been overlooked in the 3.5 conversion, and a couple of the converted ones are wrong.

Angel, Solar: reads "epic or evil", should read "epic and evil"
Demon, Balor and Demon, Marilith: read "good or cold iron", should read "good and cold iron"
Devil, Cornugon: requires "+2 or better", should require "good and silver"
Devil, Gelugon: requires "+2 or better", should require "good"
Devil, Hamatula: requires "+1 or better", should require "good"
Devil, Pit Fiend: requires "+2 or better", should require "good and silver"

These next three, per the 3.5 MM, have DR that is not "bypassable"
Elemental, Huge: requires "+2 or better"
Elemental, Greater: requires "magic"
Elemental, Elder: requires "magic"

 

[Ranger REG]

With all due respect, can I use square instead of hex in the realm management system? I may be an old-school wargamer, but these days I prefer the innovative D&D/d20 square grid unit standard. Anybody got some tips on using square with the FoB material?

I concur with others that the book should have gotten a hardcover treatment, but I accepted the management's decision to go softcover. There is one problem though. My copy of FoB, as well as my FLGS's stock, has the worst softcover treatment. It doesn't have creases on the covers to fold and the pages are already hanging by the thread of whatever poor-quality adhesive your bookprinting company uses. I can't help but wonder why you could go for a more thicker soft cover (about the same thickness as TSR's Complete Handbook series) with better binding.

I'm still going through the book as we speak, but is there a content in which a leader can have influence in a province owned by someone else (e.g., church, mob, trading guild, etc.)?

 

[Silveras]

With all due respect, can I use square instead of hex in the realm management system? I may be an old-school wargamer, but these days I prefer the innovative D&D/d20 square grid unit standard. Anybody got some tips on using square with the FoB material?

I don't think it will make too much difference on the Production end; a 12-mile-across square or a 12-mile-across hex are almost the same.

Where it will make a difference, though, is in the Mass Battles component. You will need to determine how you want to handle potential "diagonal movement". Also, when two armies meet on the main map, a "zoom in" occurs; the single big hex gets represented as a cluster of seven smaller hexes, and the forces are able to shift about there, looking for the most advantageous territory. A three-by-three grid of 4-mile squares will do it, but those diagonal movement questions come up again.

I'm still going through the book as we speak, but is there a content in which a leader can have influence in a province owned by someone else (e.g., church, mob, trading guild, etc.)?

Not much. There are three Espionage actions, through which you can attempt to Neutralize one of the opponent's Guilds, Find out what is being done in that Hex, or Reduce his Production. That is basically it.

 

[Silveras]

Well, my review is up.

 

[Eden Studios Inc]

I concur with others that the book should have gotten a hardcover treatment, but I accepted the management's decision to go softcover. There is one problem though. My copy of FoB, as well as my FLGS's stock, has the worst softcover treatment. It doesn't have creases on the covers to fold and the pages are already hanging by the thread of whatever poor-quality adhesive your bookprinting company uses. I can't help but wonder why you could go for a more thicker soft cover (about the same thickness as TSR's Complete Handbook series) with better binding.
QUOTE]

The book was originally going to be hardcover.

We got rid of it when distributors handed in their preorders and they were much lower than we expected. They sited a glut of d20 products on the market as to why they lowered their numbers.

We didnt want to print a book and lose money on it. So we had to cut the hardcover on it.

As for the cover stock and insides, we printed the book with the printer we have been using for years - we used standard cover and interior stock that we use on ALL our products.

Im sorry you feel that the quality was poor.

Sometimes printing errors happen and defective copies may have been shipped without our knowledge since we ship products to distributors most of the time in unopened cases that we get from the printer.

 

[Eden Studios Inc]

I think "second edition" might have been a poor choice of words. I can see the value of a companion volume exploring more options. Perhaps some more cultural settings, along the lines of the Decadent society JoeGKushner was suggesting; and more realm spells, as I was suggesting. Such a volume could expand on some areas, like offering ways to make the Guilds more active players in the political scene of Fields of Blood, and offering simplified record-keeping for NPC realms.

The reason I say that a companion volume might be a better view is because I do not see any major flaws in the systems presented. Other books in this vein have shown "cracks in the foundation" when used to describe an active world. Fields of Blood does not have that problem, making it a solid foundation on which to build. I am far more comfortable adding house rules to extend a solid framework than to fix a flawed one.

Currently we dont have plans for a second edition, we dont think it warrents it.

If we sell out we will most likely fix typos, like we usually do when we reprint a product.

We will also do some web support for this product as well.

 

[Gundark]

something i want to know

I understand that units work by strength. Is there any indicator of numbers? like after a battle do I know (even if roughly) how many of my troops survived the battle? I guess I'll need to look at this book myself when it comes to my local gaming store

 

[Ranger REG]

The book was originally going to be hardcover.

We got rid of it when distributors handed in their preorders and they were much lower than we expected. They sited a glut of d20 products on the market as to why they lowered their numbers.

We didnt want to print a book and lose money on it. So we had to cut the hardcover on it.

As for the cover stock and insides, we printed the book with the printer we have been using for years - we used standard cover and interior stock that we use on ALL our products.

Im sorry you feel that the quality was poor.

Sometimes printing errors happen and defective copies may have been shipped without our knowledge since we ship products to distributors most of the time in unopened cases that we get from the printer.

As I said, I understand the decision to downgrade from hardcover to softcover treatment. I just wish it was of a better quality softcover treatment for such a good Eden Studio product.

But to be fair, Field of Blood is my first Eden Studio product.

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As for the "diagonal movement on square grid" problem, I see none. SKR pretty much solved that for us and I have been so used to it (just as I was used to AD&D Armor Class goes down and THAC0 formula).