Has anybody tried out AEG's Swashbuckling Adventures? Any thoughts?

[blackshirt5]

I'm pondering picking this one up, as I'd like to add a bit of swashy-ness to my game, but I wanted to get some opinions from people. Pros? Cons? Unmitigated rants on either the godhood or diabolic heritage of the writers and developers?

 

[Xeriar]

I'm pondering picking this one up, as I'd like to add a bit of swashy-ness to my game, but I wanted to get some opinions from people. Pros? Cons? Unmitigated rants on either the godhood or diabolic heritage of the writers and developers?

Pros: Very creative, lots of good ideas, great for pulling a few things out for nearly any d20 campaign.

Cons: Some stuff is a bit overpowered, obviously, and some stuff is pretty specific to Theah.

The focus on Swashbuckling ups the power of melee combat all around - some feats are not balanced with the PHB and are clearly not meant to be.

Depending on your point of view, I'd say 10-30% of the stuff falls into the 'overpowered' category, and about 10% (including a bit of the overpowered stuff) is Theah specific.

The value of this book is going to vary, of course, from campaign to campaign, it's kind of like a 'crunchy bits' book for a setting. Very, very crunchy.

 

[blackshirt5]

Good to know. My world is including some swashbuckling stuff, although this particular campaign that I'm focused on now isn't as big into the swashbuckling(another campaign after this one is going that way though).

 

[kenjib]

Re: Re: Has anybody tried out AEG's Swashbuckling Adventures? Any thoughts?

It seemed to me that stuff was purposefully overpowered because in Theah, magic items are extraordinarily rare. D&D power levels for fighter types assume that they are decked out head to toe in magical booty. Swashbuckling Adventures compensates for this lack of magical gear. It also helps people play daring swashbucklers that don't wear any armor, and a few parts of the book really favor people who don't wear armor.

I haven't played it yet but I think that as a complete system it looks like it would work very well so long characters don't get too much magic gear. In terms of pulling out bits and pieces, you really need to use discretion. There is definitely some stuff you can pull out for flavor though.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I actually have players mixing and matching Swashbuckling with DnD and there have been no ill affects.

I really really really liked both SA and the Swashbuckling Arcana, I think they work well both on their own and to add color to any existing game.

That said the editing in the book is a little frustrating and the priest class is not as cool as it should be.

Best of luck to you.