I have been, basically obsessed with the legends of King Arthur and his knights since I was a small child. My first Halloween costume that I remember (I was 5), was Sir Gawain. I saw Monty Pythons Holy Grail more times then I can count, when it played at the local theater. I dress up in armor, get on a horse and charge other's that share my dementia, with a (not so) pointy sticks on hot summer week days.
So, yes, after 30 some years I think it qualifies as an obssession.
I am also a role player. So it's no surprise that I buy EVERYTHING game item that features the knights of the round table.
Recently I purchased two D&D products, both focusing on how to turn 3rd Ed. rules into a Arthurian Campaign. Relics & Rituals: Excalibur, and RPGObjects Legends of Excalibur. Both are in their own way solid products, that show case the versatility of 3rd Ed, and show just how far D&D has come as an RPG. Of the two publications, RPGObjects Legends of Excalibur is by far and a way better suited towards a "hard core" Arthurian Campaign, with the emphasis on making the campaign as true to the stories as possible. How well it succeeds is a matter of what kind of campaign one wants to run.
Legends of Excalibur is a collection of new rules, at the expense of what makes D&D, ummm D&D. Many of the rules require players to ditch time honored concepts and embrace new ones, to ensure that things conform to the world of Arthur.
The first big departure from a standard D&D campaign is, there is one race: Humans. This, of course makes sense within the setting. Arthurian legend weren't populated mottely crue of refugees from Middle Earth, but good stout English (and French, and...) Men (& women). To compensate for the lack of racial diversity, Legends offers a new concept.
The new concept is,"Bloodlines".The Bloodlines are tool for working the medieval social class structure into the campaign. What ones social rank is very much determines who they can be. It determines wealth, duties, and general aspects of ones out look on life. It also grants the "Lineage" traits, which tanslates to ability adjustments and bonus Feats. The curious thing is, players pick their "Bloodline". This is curious because, even though (true to some of the tales), it is possible to start as a destitute yokel, and rise to knighthood, what player in there right mind is going to choose to be a "dirt farmer" when they can "Start at the top"?. Oh, sure, there is going to be the odd-ball player who enjoys the "role playing challange", but lets face it, most players will opt for the easy road.
The next thing Legends does is toss out a number of "inappropriate" core classes, and introduces their replacements, and a few new "appropriate" classes. For the most part, the new classes make sense. What is Arthur, with out his knights? for example. Other new/replacement classes include The Fool, the Hermit (A holyman/healer), the Hedge Mage (replaces wizard/Sorcerer), Priest (A revamped cleric), Minstral, Robber Baron (rogue knights, who don't play fair), Skald, and the stout Yeoman (ranger). All have a place in the Arthurian world, but I have doubts about just how they were developed in some cases, and the over all usefulness of others.
Is there really a demand, or need for 4 (Skald, Minstral, and Fool, plus the Core Class: Bard) entertaineer classes? I would think that the 3rd Ed. rules are flexible enough to accomodate all these in one basic class, given the level of customizing one can achieve. And the Noble class seems a bit pointless, especially Royalty, unless one wishes to role play medieval estate manager a lot.None the less, I suppose if nothing else, they make for interesting NPCs if nothing else...
Which leads me to my misgiveings about the knight class. Both Relics and Rituals and RPGObjects decided to make them core classes (in the case of Legends 2 classes really), which is fine. But I find fault with the approach by both compainies. The greater fault however rests with Legends. The Knight class is so overloaded with special abilities that it virtually guarentees that each knight is a carbon copy of the next. Which runs counter to the whole design principle of 3rd Edition. Further more the knight starts out as a slave to the Code of Chivalry. That is at least if he wants to stay a knight. If his Nobility Score ever drops below a certain point, he may no longer advance along this path. Now this bugs me because it basically pigeon-holes knights into the most basic Arthurian Cliche. There are plenty of examples of the Knights of the round table behaveing badly, quite often on multiple occassions. The one saveing grace is, a "fallen knight" may opt to become a Robber Baron, which is for all intents and purposes a "Black knight" wannabe. a disgraced knight may attempt to work his way back into his lords favor, and regain his knighthood.
The long and the short of this complaint is, there are far to many rules in place that work towards forceig knight to all behaive in a like manner, if they wish to remain knights. Not an approach, I personally, care overly much for. I'd much rather prefer a slideing scale like the one in R&R: Excalibur, that serves as a measure of reputation & its consequences, rather then armtwisting and threatened class changes. After all, I don't ever recall Arthur telling even the worst of his knights "YOU'RE FIIIIIIIRRRREEEEDDD!".
My own personal feeling is, prehaps if the author had provided a few more 'flavors' of knights, to fill in the gap between the "good guys" and the "bad guys",as well as incorperating a more flexible "reputation system", that allowed of more role playing leeway it would have gone quite a long way towards avoiding this problem.
On the plus side, the Priest & Hermit classes get just the tweaks needed to fit a "cleric" into line with the Arthurian myths, putting them more in the role of a pseudo christain clergy, then that of the core class pagan "Undead Hunter" style cleric. I also really liked the Hedge Wizard, although I would argue that there is indeed a place for both the core class Sorcerer and Wizard ( an argument R&R's book makes a good case for)in this setting. However it is a nice varaint of the core class, for flavor if nothing else.
Also offered up are a number of suitable PrC's for the players to work for. All fit fairly well into the setting, and there are at least one or two (if not more) for each base class to aspire to. Although the Spectral (aka "Coloured knights") seem to get a bit out of hand. There are some notes on Epic levels to, for those that are in to that sort of thing...
Legends also includes roughly a dozen new feats, and just as many new meta magic feats, to tweak various classes with, none of these appear to overpowered or unbalanceing, but rather just enough to add a little colour to ones character.
There is also an essay on Nobility, how it is gained and lost, the code of chivalry and various oaths. Basically the more one behaves in a crass, or selfish manor the more points they loose, while those who uphold the tenants of Chivalry gain points.
Followed by the (not so new) concept of Fate & Destiny Points. Fate and Destiny play a large part in the stories of Arthur and his knights. Arthur is destiny to pull the sword from the stone, Merlin's fate is fortold, Lancelot eventual betrayal of Arthur is forseen, as is the arrival of Mordred. In otherwords, no one worth mentioning suffers from a random death in the stories. The people in Arthurian tales are most frequent blessed and curse, destine to greatness, but fated to tragic ends. The idea behind Fate & Destiny rules are player characters are also in the same boat more ore less. The Fate & Destiny Rules allow the player to influnce events by spending "Fate points" (one may be spent per game session) thus altering the outcome with die modification , but each time they do so they risk bringing their destiny closer. The problem is the rules aren't exactly clear as to how this all works. The rules state that each time a player uses a fate point, they aqquire +2 destiny points, but no where do the state just what that really means....Also some factors seem a bit screwy, for instance allowing players to dictate just what their fate is. As for Destiny, this is even less clear...One assumes that the DM would assign a destiny, and it would be unknown to the player unless he went to a reliable soothsayer, but the rules encourage the DM to clear a destiny resulting in death with the player first...
The rest of the book is rounded up by equipment lists, descriptions of knightly orders and the requirements to join and befifits aqquired from belonging to them.
And Finally the book closes out with its last "Big" departure from the core rules,
by introduceing a Spell Point system.In a nut shell, rather then being assigned spell slots, characters earn a set number of points per level. Spells have a set number of points required to cast. A magic user who burns off all his spell points becomes fatiqued and unable to preform magic untill he has rested.
Each type of spell user regains points at a rate determined by his surroundings and his actions.
This is all followed up with a list of spells that are appropriate for the world of Arthurian tales, and a smattering of new spells.
The Variant spell system is interesting, if imperfect, and offers an alternative to the "whacky" old D&D "fire & forget" method of spell casting. And the spell list is fairly well done. One of the more overwhelming aspects of converting D&D to a setting such as this HAS to be how to handel magic, with out crippleing the magic users to much.
Overall Legends of Excalibur, is, if an incomplete and imperfect approach to establishing an Arthurian campaign, one that does contain enough information to get one going on their way.
The second "half" of the "book" ( PDF sold seperately)provides a bit more setting oriented material, but to some one familair with (or has access to Chaosims "Pendragon") Arthurs England shouldn't be necessary.
For those out there that have been pineing for a d20 addoption of Pendragon, look no further.
Personally, I intend to use this supplement to compliment R&R's effort, as I find the books fairly complementory to one another.
