Legends of Excalibur
Legends of Excalibur is a campaign setting resource for running adventures in Arthurian England, much as described by classical stories such as Malory's
Le Morte D'Artur and Tennyson's
Idylls of the King. The book is written by Charles Rice and published by RPG Objects.
A First Look
Legends of Excalibur is a 160 page hardcover book priced at $29.95.
The cover has a gold leaf color with various drawings of Arthurian era scenes on the front.
The interior is black and white. Interior artwork are reproductions of classical paintings of Arthurian stories and scenes. The paintings are classics that adorn many gamers' walls, but reduced in size and in black and white loses a good bit of the detail of most of them.
Cartography is by Clayton Bunce. Beautiful full color maps of the British isles and sites therein adorn the end leaves of the book, and similarly nice black and white maps are used in the interior.
A Deeper Look
The goal of
Legends of Excalibur is to provide a campaign setting and rules for running an classic Camelot game in the
d20 system. In doing this, the book espouses an approach that is more willing to alter the basics of the system to make it fit the feel of Arthurian lore.
The book is divided into chapters on character creation, magic, Arthurian legend, adventuring/GM resources, magic items, and creatures, and an appendix with NPC statistics.
The character chapter starts by (in a move reminiscent of
Spycraft) re-utilizing the now unused level mechanic for something else, in this class,
Bloodline. Bloodline runs approximately along the lines of social class, but assumes a bit of idealized "destiny." Like races, the bloodlines determines ability modifiers, favored classes (for example, knights for nobility and rogue for base/criminals), and other traits, such as bonus feats and skill bonuses.
Much like FFG's
Midnight,
Legends of Excalibur tweaks the class mix to get a more precise feel for the setting. Barbarian, Bards, Druids, Fighters, and Rouges are retained, though spellcasting classes are adapted to fit the new spellcasting system. Clerics, Priests, Wizards, Sorcerers, and Paladins are gone, though there are new classes that resemble some of these classes.
There are thee new classes that might be regarded "entertaining" classes (which, with the retention of the bard, makes a total of four): the fool, minstrel, and skald. These join the bard as classes that feature entertainment as class abilities. The fool specializes in distraction and banter, though features acrobatic abilities as well. I'm sure those who recall the movie
The Court Jester could conceive some character concepts for this class. I hope someone does, for "a jester unemployed is nobody's fool".
The minstrel receives many bard-like musical abilities, and even receives druid spells, which makes the class seem awfully close to the bard indeed. While the minstrel has the charming aspects of the bard abilities, the skald has more of the military morale boosting effects. Altogether, it seems to me the minstrel, bard, and skald are way too close to deserve separate core classes and could have been replaced by a more flexible core class to represent all of them, and possibly the fool as well.
The hedge mage is the main arcane caster of the setting. The receive arcane spells from a custom (less blast-oriented) list presented in this book, in addition to class abilities that let them fit the role of eccentric and feared mages. This includes evocative touches such as prophecy, appearing in the dreams of others, and intimidating common folk that fear magic.
Hermits and Priests are divine casters of the setting, following the One God, what the setting calls the Christian God. The hermit is more of a lay priest with abilities relating to folk cures, while priests are members of the Church, with class abilities relating to the rituals of the Church.
One note about spellcasters in this system: as they use the custom spell point system presented here, they defy being pulled back into a more conventional game, if that is your preferences.
Knights represent the archetypal military nobility of the era. The knight's abilities are related to mounted and armored combat, and oaths and honor. The Robber Baron is a counterpoint to this class, and represent knights who are less chivalrous. The also have abilities in mounted combat but also have class abilities that are quite a bit less related to honor - such as feint and sneak attack.
As nobility plays a big role in an Arthurian setting, the Noble is featured as a PC class. Most noble abilities stem from their authority and aura of leadership.
Finally, as the ranger is not an option in a standard
Legends of Excalibur campaign, the book offers the Yeoman. The yeoman is a woodman, archer and hunter, sort of a non-spellcasting, non-Drizzt ranger. The yeoman receives wilderness and tracking skills as well as archery bonuses.
The book offers a variety of prestige classes appropriate to the setting as well: alchemist, berserker, chageling, court mage, crusader, enchantress, lady of the lake, quest knight, saint, and "spectral knights", a collection of specialized knight prestige classes associated with a variety of figures from Arthurian stories who claimed certain colors as their moniker. Hmmm, nothing in the black knight description about operating with limbs chopped off, though.... All of the prestige classes are ten level classes.
A number of new feats are available in the book. Many of the new feats act to emphasize the feel of the setting or certain character concepts. For example, if you are a character of great faith (having the
faith feat), it can assist you in some cases, allowing you to reroll one save at a bonus once per day, and
dark heritage (such as Merlin's supposed demonic heritage) gives a character a bonus to their spells and makes hedge mage a favored class. Many old metamagic feats appear here, tweaked to fit the new spell system.
A new feature of characters in
Legends of Excalibur is the
nobility score. This score is, appropriate to the period, supposed to represent general worthiness of the character, but starts out merely as a reflection of their social class. A character's actions can affect their nobility score, for good and for ill. A high nobility is required for certain classes, could lead to advancement in social class, and may make a character easier to recognize.
Legends of Excalibur uses an allegience system instead of an alignment system, much like d20 modern. Like that system, a character selects up to three alleigances, listed in order. The list of alleigances is primarily composed of oaths (often to specific entities) or a code of chivalry.
Though nobility and allegiance are concepts that we have seen before in games, there is one that is a bit different than what has appeared before,
fate and destiny points. At first glance, they appear similar to action points, but closer examination reveals differences. A character acquired fate points every time they level. The only acquire destiny points when they use fate points.
The player chooses a "fate" for their character, such as "to rule all England." The character can spend fate points to gain bonuses (larger than would be afforded by action points) towards that goal. However, the DM assigns the character a secret destiny like "to be slain by his son", which the DM can spend point to see the fulfilment of.
This is a fascinating concept, one previously little explored by RPGs. However, it needs a little more support to help it bear fruit. A page each on potential destinies and fates, for example, would not be unwarranted.
Other information in the character chapter includes knightly orders, equipment, and support for epic level characters.
The second chapter cover magic in the setting. The magic system uses the normal 9-level spell system, allowing you to use the existing system if you prefer, and allowing you to use existing spells with this system. There are spell lists for each of the spellcasting classes included in the book, which are somewhat less flashy than those in the core books, though they still go up to level 9.
The spell point system bears some similarity to the ones based on psionics that seen ubiquitous, which give the character a spell point total and spell costs vary by level. However, the major difference is that spell costs vary by class level as well. At higher levels, not only do you get more point to cast spells with, but lower level spell costs less. Conversely, casters can cast spells above the level that is normally available to a character of that level, but at great cost.
The specifics of the spell point system vary by class. Though some aspects of spell point recovery are common to all classes, different classes seem to derive their power from different sources. As such, certain conditions can help or hinder the spell point recovery of certain classes. For example, priests recover spell points faster on hallowed ground, but hermits recover spell points faster in the wilderness.
There is a short selection of new spells for the setting. Some of these take advantage of new concepts, such as the nobility score, or draw from concepts of the period, such as a spell which allows a priest to call out sinners with very real effects.
The third chapter is entitled
Guide to Arthurian Legend. It contains historical perspective on knighthood, and a timeline of Arthurian Britain. The timeline is drawn from traditional sources and contains many direct quotes from Malory and Tennyson.
The book also has briefs on locales and major Arthurian characters. Theses character (much to the joy of some who criticized this book's main rival, S&SS's
Relics & Rituals: Excalibur) have complete d20 system statistics. Though thorough, one thing that took me aback was the level attributed to these characters. As an example, Galahad is a 30th level character. Though many Arthurian characters are legendary, I think that levels 10-20 are legendary in any fair sense of the word and sufficient to handle most of Arthurian figures. I feel that the over-the-top and oft-times cumbersome epic level system is not appropriate here. (Fortunately, some characters like Arthur and Morgan Le Fey see more reasonable "younger" versions in the next chapter.)
The fourth chapter,
Arthurian Adventuring, provides a rich mix of material facilitating the running of Arthurian games. This include direct GM advice (such as how to deal with issues of canon, such as working within it or skirting around it), sample locales to run games in, and sample quests involving Arthurian characters.
The fifth chapter is brief and covers magic items that appear in Arthurian lore. Many such items are artifacts of varying levels of power (such as the famed
Excalibur and the
Round Table), though there are a few items that fit the traditional mold of D&D magic items.
The sixth chapter,
Bestiary, is also somewhat brief, and covers creatures appropriate to Arthurian lore. The chapter provides a list of creatuer from the MM appropriate for the setting, some entries merely explaining the role of the creature in the setting, others providing tweaks to fit the setting. A few new creatures are provided, such as legendary beasts like the white hart and questing beast.
Finally, an appendix provides NPC statistics from levels 1-20 for all of the new classes introduced in the book, in the same format as those in the DMG.
Conclusions
Legends of Excalibur is a great resource for those interested in using the
d20 System to run a faithful campaign set in and Arthurian lore style England. Most of the changes are appropriate and well done, and the settings, quests, and NPCs provide great support for the GM of such a setting.
The classes are generally well written, and the use of typical convention makes most of them appropriate for use by those looking to borrow elements for a more typical campaign. However, the classes could be a little tidier (especially the bardlike classes), and the use of the epic system strikes me as unjustified and even (given the general perceived unwieldiness and feel of the epic level rules, and the barrier it creates for players to actually make characters like those in the legends) even unattractive.
Overall Grade: B+
-Alan D. Kohler
