Guilds & Adventurers

[Messageboard Golem]

Ever wanted specific rules for a beautiful courtesan cohort just gained
through the leadership feat, or the armorer making your new shield?
Perhaps you fancied yourself a master weaponcrafter but found no rules
detailing your interests?

Guilds and Adventurers is a guidebook detailing 30 universal guild
prestige and NPC classes useable in any setting by players, their
henchmen, and NPC's alike.

However it does not stop there.

In addition, it holds within its pages a collection of 10 unusual guilds
and adventuring societies for use in, but not exclusive to, "The Hunt:
Rise of Evil" fantasy setting.

Want to be a dreamcatcher, hunting the living Nightmares of Gothos? Or
perhaps you are a mark for the calculating assassin group, The Lottery?
Guilds and Adventurers gives you everything you need to make these
groups a living breathing part of your game world.

Guilds and Adventurers is a must have for your D20 campaign.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Guilds and Adventurers is the latest resource for d20 fantasy games from Mystic Eye Studios. At 128 pages, it's very reasonably price at $19.99.

It starts off with a general introduction and brings in some new game mechanics with the Guildsman Prestige Class and the Guild Expert, a NPC Core Class. The interesting twist with the Guildsman is that they gain rank in the guild as they go up in level and Guildsman abilities. The abilities are determined by what guild you belong to. This is a simple solution to making a multi-purpose prestige class that's easy to use and understand. Each guild has different requirements and different class skills and abilities. Makes it very easy to add to most campaigns with little fanfare. The Guild Expert gains Guild abilities and rank slower, has more skill points but less hit points and is generally something that unlike the Expert, isn't ever going to be looked at by a player who if interested in such a thing, would take the Expert and go into the prestige class.

The guilds themselves are listed with title, brief description, guild symbol (described and illustrated), guild requirements, associate membership, guild dues, guild specialized knowledge, class skills, guild feats, guild rank and aptitude and guild ability. Right away I can see another unique thing about the Guildsman Prestige Class in Synergistic Advancement. This means that they gain their standard class abilities, hit points, skill points, bab, saving throws, special abilities, etc... for their original class, but the skills and feats native to the guild may now be taken by the Guildsman. The potential abuse comes in the fact that they still gain rank and guild class abilities. In almost every case where synergy is possible, it'd be foolish not to take it.

Speaking outside this product, I didn't find this to be a huge issue as I use the Guildcraft book from Bastion Press and the various Schools from both Mongoose's Quientessential books and Fantasy Flight Games various Path books. These books rely on experience points as a trade off for extra abilities. I'd never allow a player to mix and match abilities from all three books. I figure, pick a path and go with it.

As far as the guilds go, there are thirty of them so almost every important avenue is covered. All purpose Adventurer's Guild? Check. Alchemist? Check. Apothecary? Check. Armorer? Check. Artificer? Check. The list goes on and on. Most of the brief descriptions place the Guild in the Hunt setting but its a minor reference. The only real weakness here is that the guilds have is that most are self serving and has no reference to how they interact with others guilds. For example, the Shipwright's Guild has no connection to the Seafarers Guild which has no connection to the specialty Salvager's Guild.

One thing I did was to do is look over the special abilities and see how I could incorporate them into the campaign and what role these guilds would take. The Weaponcrrafter's Guild for instance, has several properties they can craft to blades like Razor-Edge, a +1 bonus to damage if the target has a combined natural and normal armor bonus of +5 or less. Tempered grants weapons made of metal a +5 hardness bonus. A small sampling but right away I can see using these as minor items for low level parties. Like everything else, game balance is in the eye of the beholder so before a GM just gives the nod to any ability, they should reference it for their interior game balance.
While the general guilds are perfect for most gaming needs and fill almost every common niche, I enjoyed the second part of the book, the ten Specialty Guilds. Take the Arrowhead Order. Lots of detail with the ability to call upon the Spirits of the Marsh for different abilities and bonuses as well as new monsters in the forms of the Blight Pod and Polyp with adventure seeds and NPCs listed. This doesn't count the new druid spell or prestige class, Heron Councilor. Sure general guilds are good for adding a little this and that, but this guild provides a solid foundation that the GM can easily build upon and insert into his own campaign.

Most of the other specialty guilds don't get as much attention but are different enough to stand out. I can already see someone making use of the Lottery, a guild that puts its foes onto a kill list, and combining it with the Society of Secret Sport from E.N. Publisher's own Deadly Games or having the party seek out the Sererance Guild to handle some unruly ghosts whose secrets are so hidden that they can't find a means of permanently destroying it.

Those looking for a compilation of game material are out of luck. Material is in the context. For example, the feat Superior Demeanor gives the user a +2 bonus to Will Saves but a -3 penalty to Charisma (but stacks with Iron Will so has some merit), is found under the Viniculturists' Guild. This alone provides a solid reason for reading through the book as you never know what nugget will be hidden in an area.

One thing that failed on the layout is the borders. These borders don't cover the whole page and the text at the top and bottom bleeds over into these areas and looks unattractive. Otherwise layout is solid in most cases. Guilds are separated by icons and internal borders. Art is good and fits the subject matter. Another good thing is that the interior covers are used so that the book itself is text devoted to the subject.

Some may complain that the material is tied into Gothos, the setting of Mystic Eye Games campaign, the Hunt. While there may be some difficulty in erasing all ties to that setting, most of the material is so campaign neutral that it'd be really sad to see a GM who had issues overcoming those ties. Even the Traveler's Society of Gothos with its name is little more than a guide guild and is easy to throw into most campaigns with a minimal amount of work despite losing some of the strengths of the Hunt tie in like the Merchant Class.

Guilds and Adventurers provides the GM with lots of toys to add whole or in piece to his campaign and players who want to try their hand at something different can benefit from joining these guilds using the Guildsman Prestige Class to gain some unique abilities that tie into their goals.

 

[GameWyrd]

Mystic Eye’s Guilds and Adventurers contains some victories on the battle ground of lateral thinking. The book contains a guild system that makes me far less uneasy that most.

Guild status becomes an issue of Prestige Class, unless you’re an NPC, in which case there’s an expert-based NPC class for you. A prestige class approach to guild status makes sense for d20 fantasy, especially given the way the prestige classes have come to rule the system. A prestige class for guild membership is simpler and cleaner than an extra mechanic and note on your character sheet. The first obstacle to overcome with a prestige class approach is the inherent lack of sense where, for example, a bard has to stop being a bard in order to join the bards’ guild. The solution comes in two stages. The first stage is to keep to a single generic guild prestige class and have it draw its class abilities from lists specific to individual guilds. This means that membership of the Thieves Guild of Sumer can have different game effects than the Thieves Guild of Uruk. The second stage is to tie this light-weight PrC to not just a guild but to another character class as well. Mystic Eye calls this Synergistic Advancement.

When a guild allows synergistic advancement it means the player takes the hit points, skill points, base attack bonus, saving throws, special abilities, caster level and spells from another class he has whenever he levels in the synergistic guild prestige class. The character also benefits from the class skills, feats, rank and abilities of the guild class. Simply put, a wizard advancing and doing well in a synergistic wizards’ guild continues to advance and do well as a wizard. It makes sense. Increasing your guild prestige class level is tied into your progression in the guild. That could be a problem, I suppose. The d20 system is one where characters develop supernatural abilities, impressive feats of physical prowess and a deeper, stronger, connection to their god – and often at the same time as everyone else in the group. Having guild advancement tied to character level pales in comparison to that list of inexplicables and it is definitely easier for a GM to cope with.

I mentioned the thief guilds of Sumer and Uruk but they’re both just made up examples. Guilds and Adventurers is written to support Gothos, the campaign setting for The Hut: The Rise of Evil, but most of the sample guilds are good for most fantasy settings and the guild system will certainly work pretty much anywhere. There are pages of guilds; you have the usual suspects such as adventurers’ and assassins’ guilds but you also have brewers’ guilds and tailors’ guilds. Middle ground comes in the form of masons’ guilds (one of real life’s famous ‘guilds’) and the weaponcrafters’ guild. Scattered around in these first 70 pages are one or two new feats, expanded skills and items.

The second half of the book looks at highly specialised guilds. These guilds are so specific that each comes with plot hooks and ideas; if you’re going to put the speciality into your game then you’re putting in fairly strong plot currents. The lottery, for example, is a guild of assassins who’ll accept even small amounts of money in exchange for putting the would-be target on the hit list. It is then a matter of luck whether any member assassin decides to carry out the hit. This time round, now that the guilds have the ring of plot about them, each is given fairly well fleshed out NPCs. In addition to new feats and spells you’ll find prestige classes in this half of the book. The Severance is a guild who deal with ghosts and spirits and so the Spiritualist is their tailor made prestige class.

It’s not a pretty book. The sidebars are primarily to blame since they fail to reach from the top of the page to the bottom and allow text to creep in the gaps. The bloody Rise of Evil logo doesn’t suit the renaissance faire theme used for the rest of the layout decoration either or perhaps it is a case of the renaissance faire theme not suiting the Rise of Evil logo.

The book may not be pretty but the illustration quality isn’t to blame. Illustrations are a little scarce but are of good quality, most of the guilds have their symbol depicted too and with a fairly large text size the book avoids becoming an uninviting block of text.

Guilds and Adventurers is good value for money. It’s just under US$20 and comes in at 128 pages. The OGL text is printed on the inside of the back cover too and so doesn’t take up a page. This low price per page more than offsets any concerns I might have had about the slightly large text size.

Guilds and Adventurers only does one thing – fantasy guilds. Guilds and Adventurers does fantasy guilds very well. If guilds are or could be important to your d20 campaign, especially if you want a large range of pre-written guilds, then this book should be a serious contender on your supplement list.

* This Guild and Adventurers review was first published by GameWyrd.

 

[Psion]

Guilds and Adventurers

Guilds and Adventurers is a sourcebook detailing guilds and similar professional groups for the d20 System by Mystic Eye Games. The book is nominally a Hunt: Rise of Evil supplement but is applicable with some adaptations to most standard d20 System fantasy settings.

Guilds and Adventurers is written by Kenneth C. Shannon III, Ian Thompson, Doug Herring, Andrew Thompson, Andrew Hind, Wade Nudson, and Bret Boyd.

A First Look

Guilds and Adventurers is a 128-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $19.99. This is a competitive price for a d20 System book of this size.

The cover of the book, illustrated by Matt Bober, depicts a man and a woman working some sort of trade in a marketplace.

The interior art is black and white and includes the talents of Jeremy McHugh, Alan Dyson, Chad Segesketter, Hunter Frederick McFalls, Doug Penney, and Brannon Hall. The art is of mediocre to good quality, with McHugh being one of the most definitive artists of the book.

The book uses a san serif body text font like many Mystic Eye games product, which impairs readability somewhat. The lines and paragraphs are single spaced, but the font used is somewhat large, providing a smaller than optimal word count per page.

A Deeper Look

There are two major sections of the book. Both sections detail guilds and similar organizations. The first section includes more mundane and familiar guilds like alchemists, beggars, merchants, and seafarers.

The second section, entitled "Associtions, Societies, and Specialty Guilds", is a bit more detailed, providing more unique (and Gothos-specific) guilds such as the lottery (an assassins guild that collects dues and dispenses assassins based on fees collected from various individuals who are willing to pay towards a fund to dispense with various hated individuals) and the second fiddle (a group of slacker artisans).

The second section is a miniature "adventure" resource, with plot ideas and game mechanics, in a similar vein to Mystic Eye's Foul Locales series. In addition to the material included in the basic guilds, there are adventure hooks, NPCs, creatures, and prestige classes included with these guilds.

The guilds share a basic format, which covers details such as a name, basic description, entry requirements, and dues.

Another common aspect of the guilds are the classes used to define members. There are two new classes included common to most guilds, the guildsman prestige class and the guild expert NPC class. Both of these classes receive generic abilities in terms of guild ranks and guildsman abilities as they advance. These abilities are different for each guild and called out in the guild description, along with details such as class skills, bonus feats, and which skill their skill focus skill is in. This mechanic is fairly flexible and utilitarian. The one nitpick here is that the guildsman prestige class did not use a standard BAB advancement.

One unusual mechanic that Mystic Eye uses to facilitate certain guilds (such as the adventurers and assassins guild) is synergistic advancement. Basically, guilds that use this option list a specific class. When a character advances a rank in their guild class, they use all of bonuses and abilities of their synergistic class instead of the guildsman or guild expert prestige class, but also gain the guild abilities and rank benefits of the guild at the appropriate level as well as class skills and bonus feat choices. The mechanics struck me as a little confusing, and considering some of the benefits of guild abilities, a little powerful. It seems as if using a mechanic a bit more like d20 Modern's starting occupations of Second World Sourcebook's background options would have been a more balanced and less confusing way to achieve a similar result.

Conclusion

Overall, I found this to be a fairly useful take on adding guilds to a world, and thought that the Guild Expert and Guildsman classes were a much more solid and mechanically compelling way to achieve guild specialized abilities than the rather ad hoc and method of Bastion's Guildcraft, which tries to circumvent the class system. Further, the adventure ideas and resource material in the second section were an unexpected treat.

That said, I found the synergistic advancement mechanic troubling in that it seems both confusing to implement and as if the end result was unbalanced. Fortunately, only a few guilds use this mechanic and it seems possible to avoid their use in some cases.

Overall Grade: C+

-Alan D. Kohler