Crothian
First Post
Complete Guide to Books
There has to be some irony in having a book be a complete guide to books. Be that as it may here it is and it is a little surprising that it has taken this long for a publisher to do a book on books. There are just small areas like books that never seem to be covered but could be considered very large in the scope of a campaign world. I am pretty sure the written word had a dramatic effect on our world for instance. It pleases me to see the topic covered and covered well. This book has good information as well as the typical areas we expect like prestige classes and feats.
The PDF is one of the nicer ones I have seen. It comes with both an on screen and printable version of the product. The art and layout are really well done and the book has a really nice look to it. The PDF comes in a zip file of about fifteen megs and the two PDFs are about eleven and half megs for the on screen version and almost four megs for the printable one. The book has a good table of contents and my personal favorite thing, book marks.
The book starts with a nice list of different type of printing presses and the effect of magic. But it does not stop there. It has a bit of information on cave drawings, clay tablets, bamboo sheets, and many others. The book really showed from the beginning that it was going to cover the areas that I hoped it would as well as others. I will admit I was not expecting bamboo sheets but pleased to see them.
Illiteracy is always an issue. In the days od second edition it was assumed everyone was illiterate and needed to learn to read but in the days of third edition apparently everyone was sent school as now literacy is assumed by anyone with language. This change was one of the few things I really disliked and I think the whole language issue was made to simple and has always been to simplistic in D&D. But this book talks about the literacy rates and what can be expected. It doe not go into what levels would be appropriate where but does list several different levels or percentages of literacy and discusses them.
How would your character like to make a little more money on the side by publishing his campaign journals in game? There are rules for just that. Need to know how hard it is to find a market for your writing? How about locating a publisher? It is all here. How does the literacy rate affect the sales? What about illegal copies and people stealing your writings to sale for them selves? It is all here. It is a really nice and section and really has a lot of potential to add some fun to in between adventures. After that it lists some places to find books along with some nice maps for libraries. There are many areas that involve books that get dealt with in here. It is very thorough.
The mechanics of writing, and I am talking about the game mechanics, is dealt with using skills. Craft bookmaking, craft writing, craft printing are just some of the skills that are described here. Difficulty classes are listed for the skills to show if the work is particularly good and even ink poisons are presented. The feats are mo0stly about writing and there are not many new feats presented here. But they are very topic oriented and creative.
The prestige classes include something that is a rare find; classes that are not adventurers first. Each class is nicely balanced most of them for spell casters but they are not really designed to be adventures. There is a class that crafts legends, and other that is a book burner. The classes are both creative and functional.
The magic of book writing is a large section. It includes a lot of new spells and new magical books. There are plenty of mundane items as well. Many of these items can really add a nice level of new details to the campaign game. The magic books though can be tougher to deal with. Some add a permanent bonus to a skill and last once the book is read.
This book does the job of being a complete book on books. It deals with the areas I wanted and showed me ones I did not think of. It seems to be the rare book that expands upon the campaign world in a way that no other has. It adds detail and levels of realism to the world without bogging down with irrelevant items.
There has to be some irony in having a book be a complete guide to books. Be that as it may here it is and it is a little surprising that it has taken this long for a publisher to do a book on books. There are just small areas like books that never seem to be covered but could be considered very large in the scope of a campaign world. I am pretty sure the written word had a dramatic effect on our world for instance. It pleases me to see the topic covered and covered well. This book has good information as well as the typical areas we expect like prestige classes and feats.
The PDF is one of the nicer ones I have seen. It comes with both an on screen and printable version of the product. The art and layout are really well done and the book has a really nice look to it. The PDF comes in a zip file of about fifteen megs and the two PDFs are about eleven and half megs for the on screen version and almost four megs for the printable one. The book has a good table of contents and my personal favorite thing, book marks.
The book starts with a nice list of different type of printing presses and the effect of magic. But it does not stop there. It has a bit of information on cave drawings, clay tablets, bamboo sheets, and many others. The book really showed from the beginning that it was going to cover the areas that I hoped it would as well as others. I will admit I was not expecting bamboo sheets but pleased to see them.
Illiteracy is always an issue. In the days od second edition it was assumed everyone was illiterate and needed to learn to read but in the days of third edition apparently everyone was sent school as now literacy is assumed by anyone with language. This change was one of the few things I really disliked and I think the whole language issue was made to simple and has always been to simplistic in D&D. But this book talks about the literacy rates and what can be expected. It doe not go into what levels would be appropriate where but does list several different levels or percentages of literacy and discusses them.
How would your character like to make a little more money on the side by publishing his campaign journals in game? There are rules for just that. Need to know how hard it is to find a market for your writing? How about locating a publisher? It is all here. How does the literacy rate affect the sales? What about illegal copies and people stealing your writings to sale for them selves? It is all here. It is a really nice and section and really has a lot of potential to add some fun to in between adventures. After that it lists some places to find books along with some nice maps for libraries. There are many areas that involve books that get dealt with in here. It is very thorough.
The mechanics of writing, and I am talking about the game mechanics, is dealt with using skills. Craft bookmaking, craft writing, craft printing are just some of the skills that are described here. Difficulty classes are listed for the skills to show if the work is particularly good and even ink poisons are presented. The feats are mo0stly about writing and there are not many new feats presented here. But they are very topic oriented and creative.
The prestige classes include something that is a rare find; classes that are not adventurers first. Each class is nicely balanced most of them for spell casters but they are not really designed to be adventures. There is a class that crafts legends, and other that is a book burner. The classes are both creative and functional.
The magic of book writing is a large section. It includes a lot of new spells and new magical books. There are plenty of mundane items as well. Many of these items can really add a nice level of new details to the campaign game. The magic books though can be tougher to deal with. Some add a permanent bonus to a skill and last once the book is read.
This book does the job of being a complete book on books. It deals with the areas I wanted and showed me ones I did not think of. It seems to be the rare book that expands upon the campaign world in a way that no other has. It adds detail and levels of realism to the world without bogging down with irrelevant items.
