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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2009655" data-attributes="member: 172">GuildcraftGuildcraft is a softcover supplement by Bastion Press, publisher of such books as Minions: Fearsome Foes and the Oathbound campaign setting. Guildcraft provides new rules, ideas, and details for guilds and similar organizations in a campaign.Guildcraft is by Peter Leitch, Chris Maxfield, Mark Somers, and Wes Nicholson.A First LookGuildcraft is a 96 page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $24.95. This is the same format as Bastions previous softcover books; in general the format is a little pricey.The cover of Guildcraft has a uniform gold-tone look, with a front cover image depicting some armored figures fighting in a pillared hall.The interior is full color, featuring art by Andrew Baker, Andy Brase, Ginger Kubic, Mark Jones, and Michael Orwick. The interior art is fair to good, and most of the art is comic-book style. The art is lightly distributed through the book.The interior text is fairly dense, with conservative body and header fonts and no gratuitous paragraph or column spacing.A Deeper LookGuildcraft is divided into 5 chapters plus two appendices.The first four chapters address different types of guilds and similar organizations. Each organization includes details on membership, structure, advancement, benefits and disadvantages, affiliations, details on how one can leave the organization, a sample character in the leadership of the group, notes for use of the guild in a campaign, and adventure hooks to use the guild in the campaign.The ranks and benefits are conveyed spending xp in a cost scheme, and the benefits are very class-like in nature. As many of the guilds are class oriented, many of these abilities exist to enhance existing class abilities. I have never been fond of the approach of circumventing the class/level/feat mechanic to grant PCs skills, and unlike the prestige races in Bastion's Oathbound, the abilities discussed here seem like they should be class abilities and thus seem very unjustified and tacked on.The first chapter discusses class guilds associated with the various core classes - of course, they aren't all guilds per se. The barbarians have a horde, the druid have a cabal, paladins have an order, and so on.The second chapter covers organizations dedicated to certain professions or skills, a bit more like historical guilds. The chapter includes a mercenary band, a merchant guild, and a weaponsmith guild.The third chapter is about relational guilds, guilds that exist primarily as social organizations. The Clover Union is an alliance of families. The Feasters are a social club that indulge in exotic foods. The Lochrinn Town Guild are citizens of a town that organize for its defense.The fourth chapter is all about the Collective, a large adventurer's guild. As the whole chapter is devoted to the collective, it covers quite a bit of detail. The collective has many services available to members, such as access to adventuring gear at a discount, banking, access to appropriate experts, and the option to pay money to have your party rescued if you flub up an expedition.The fifth chapter breaks down the guild format used in other chapter and discusses how to design an organization using this format, including options for several details and a random table for designing details of a guild.The first appendix is only half column, and is a quick listing of possible NPC names.The second appendix describes two new prestige classes, a new feat (feint), and a new use for the diplomacy skill. The prestige classes are the avenger (a warrior type driven to avenge wrongs) and the Seeker (a scout in the service of the Lochrinn Town Guild). The prestige classes seem reasonable in power and concept.ConclusionThere is some worthwhile material in here, particularly in the collective chapter; players may find some of the organizational concepts useful. The outline used by the book seems to handle many of the salient point you would be concerned about with a guild.However, there were many guilds I did not find to be compelling or surprising additions to the game; much of what is there is exactly what most DMs and players would figure it would be. Further, as stated, I did not think the tacked on special abilities associated with some guilds were really appropriate. These types of abilities are exactly the sort of thing that prestige classes were designed to do and did not see a compelling reason not to go that route.-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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