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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009690" data-attributes="member: 1129">GuildcraftWritten by Peter Leitch, Chris Maxfield, Mark Somers and Wes NicholsonPublished by Bastion Press96 full color pages$24.95So you’re looking for a little extra spice for your character?  As a GM, do you wonder what role and functions the various guilds in your setting serve?  In either case, Guildcraft has some goods to offer you.The first chapter breaks down guilds into core class associations.  You get barbarian hordes, swordsmen schools, mages guilds and other goodies.  Each one with different ranks and requirements and rules for advancement.  Some of the better parts of this section include the abilities you can gain.  Said abilities belong to different levels within the guild and have an experience point cost.  Yes, that’s right, it’s not enough merely to spend the experience, you have to have the rank to do so.In some cases, these bonuses are simple role playing opportunities and bonuses, finding shelter from fellow guild members or having pull in certain circles.  In others though, the game balance, the dreaded game balance monster, may have to be called into play.  For example, the fighter’s guild, the Golden Blades, has five ranks.  At the fourth rank, you’ll be eligible for you’re 3rd ‘combat bonus’, a +1 bonus that must be selected from attack bonus or armor class bonus.  This of course stacks with other goods like weapon focus, dodge, etc… so with up to a +3 bonus, people with Power Attack and other feats to take advantage of damage are really going to ham it up, perhaps becoming untouchable if they have the feat Expertise.  The One Reed monk school provides stat bonuses and has a lot more grades so there are more bonuses to be had.  It gets to the point where you’d have to wonder why you’re character wasn’t in a guild! Now not all guilds are based around classes.  The second chapter details guilds dedicated to professions, almost modeled like historical guilds. The chapter includes a mercenary band, a merchant guild, and a weaponsmith guild. Now here, the mercenary band takes center stage for me.  There are many organizations in the Scarred Lands campaigns and I’ve never been able to figure out what to do with them or what benefits to grant certain schools.  There are several military academies very famous but would they grant powers?  Using this band, Neric’s Avengers, I have a good idea on what structure an army has (something the AEG book War completely missed), as well as what benefits that the military ranks may carry with them.The third chapter covers social guilds.  The strangest one here has to be the Feasters.  These boys get together and eat various exotic monsters and foods so I can see where the GM can easily use something like this to have the party go hunt for specialized foods for them to test.  The Lochrinn Town Guild consists of citizens of a town organized for its defense. I found this another useful tool as there are so many friggin small frontier towns that are always about to get destroyed by some horde or another of screaming humanoids that it provides a good solid base to add to those towns.The fourth chapter is all about the Collective, a large adventurer's guild.  This is a little different than Neric’s Avengers as it provides a lot more detail to the guild.  There are numerous services this guild provides.  Part of these goods include Waystations and I can’t help but think of Mercedes Lackey’s series with her Herald-Mages and their various way stations in the country.   Lots of NPCs help round out this section and provide the GM some tools to use in fleshing out the campaign further but some of those names have to go like Bob the cleric/fighter.  Bob?Chapter five helps GMs design their own guilds.  What’s the purpose?  Who are the members?  Why should people join?  What’s the criteria?  How big is it?  It seeks up a question and answer bit but falls a little short in providing stark details like how much does the guild costs to run per month, reputation modifiers, etc..  In some ways, I still look at Rifts Mercenaries for some ideas on handling the creation of organizations as it has a lot of tables and ideas to help you.The appendices include A, a fast name choicer. B has a new feat, and a new use for diplomacy.  In addition, it includes the Avenger and Seeker PrCs, each one a full 10 level class.  The Avenger is, yes, a being who hunts down those who’ve done him wrong while the seeker is an advanced scout.The book has the standard two-column layout with color interiors.  I was pleased to note that there are several different artists in the book so Bastion is listening in terms of the art department.  You’ll notice that the cover is different too and provides more proof that Bastion isn’t all about doing the same thing over and over again.  Editing is fairly good and no errors jumped up at me.  Text to white space ratio is solid.   The book is a little lite on maps though as I would’ve loved to have seen maps for everything in the book!I guess in the end, part of the problem is that the ideas and concepts here aren’t quite as useful out as they originally were.  Take the Path of books from Fantasy Flight Games.  Each one has organizations and maneuvers you can learn at an experience cost. Very similar to the ideas here. How about the core idea of prestige classes themselves?  Aren’t PrCs designed to give you special abilities for being part of an organization?  The other part of the problem is that it’s not specific enough.  For example, it doesn’t hesitate to give you a gold piece number when pointing out costs of joining the wizards’ guild, but when it states you can make money, it leaves the figure alone and nebulous.  Rising in ranks is sometimes a little unclear to.  “Go meditate and we will let you know how you did.”  Okay, but is that a concentration check with difficulties to take into account the weather and other factors or just a complete role-playing element?Guildcraft is a good book and provides numerous examples of special abilities that might be gained by interested parties but its definitely not for everyone.</blockquote>

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