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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 2057436" data-attributes="member: 158">The World of Magnamund Come Alive!I recently purchased Lone Wolf; The RPG because I have been a tremendous fan of the series for approximately 20 years or so. As a kid I used to attempt to create a standalone RPG based on the rules of the Lone Wolf and Grey Star books, and adding my own classes. So with that bias in mind, I give my review.The book has black-and-white illustrations on the interior, with a beautiful color illustration by Palph Horsley of two kai Lords in deep snows before what looks like the Kai Monastery.The system is basically d20, but with a few elements smoothed out. They did away with feats (simply rolling them into special abilities for each class), and opportunity attacks are not present. There is a skill system, much simplified, rolling tumbling and balance into acrobatics, rolling spot and listen and search into perception, etc. The nicest touch for fans of the series is that Base attack Bonus and Hit Points have been replaced by Combat Skill and Endurance. There are races and classes, but only on the most general level. There are seven "race/classes" and multiclassing is heavily discouraged, because it goes against the Lone Wolf Setting premises; it is a rather stratified milieu where secretive organizations like the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star or the Kai Lords do not readily share their secrets.The seven classes are:Brotherhood of the Crystal Star (Human, Sommlending/Durenese) - "northern" mages, who have access to ten main spells and about a dozen "words of power" but they have different levels of power they can add to these spells, and they burn Hit Points (Called Endurance) to do so.Knight of the Realm (Human, Sommlending/Durenese) - fancy fighters with all sorts of horseback stunts and weapon skills.Dwarven Gunner of Bor (Dwarf, Bor region) - about as good a fighter as a cleric, but with some phenomenal Flintlock Pistol and Rifle skills - they can do extra damage and all sorts of trick shots, but with Firearms only. Among their repertoire are abilities like creating voluminous clouds of smoke as they shoot (that obscure vision except for them), and spending life energy to do additional damage with their shots.Kai Lord (Sommlending) - if you read the game Books, you already know most of what they can do (the hunting, Animal Kinship, Stealth, Psychic combat, healing, etc.) - again, broken into different levels of prowess similar to the Crystal Stars.Mage of Dessi (human/shianti crossbreeds) - if you read the Grey Star the Wizard Books, you know THEIR abilities, too! Evocation (calling on the dead), Sorcery(firepower and sorcerous shields), Elementalism, Alchemy, etc. BEST part of all - they even replicated Grey Star's Staff, the one that shoots magic bolts! And all Mages of Dessi get one at a certain level! Mages of Dessi use a Willpower score instead of Endurance to cast their spells, and the Mages live about two and a half times as long as normal humans. Interesting, but I don't remember Dessi being tied storywise to the Shianti, but they do that here.Telchos Warrior (Human, Telchos) - think Ranger/Barbarians, and you have the basic idea. In addition, they have abilities to shake their enemies with their war cries, to bolster allies, etc.Shadakai Buccaneer (Human, Shadakai) - Rogues and Bards rolled into one, but with no spellcasting, only pseudo-magical abilities.They have a very nice magic items and equipment section. My mind swirled with names like Laumspur potions, Rendalim's Elixir, Graveweed, and Sleeptooth; I thrilled to seeing stats for the Dagger of Vashna and the Sommerswerd. Items have a LOT more history and flavor going for them than in AD&D, or Castles and Crusades, or 3E.The editing definitely needed work, but this seems a steady complaint of Mongoose in general, as I was given to understand, and not endemic to one product. I heard that they delayed this product to re-edit it anyway, and reduce errors; even with this, I noticed an assortment of minor errors. (For instance, one place where even though they took pains to rename Base attack bonus "Combat skill", there was one place in the combat chapter where it STILL slipped through.)There is a VERY good section on the geography, the continents, the regions, etc. of Magnamund, as well as a history that was comprehensive. I found it sufficient enough where I could run my own Magnamund game and not feel like I didn't have a handle on each region, nore the people who live there. In fact, each region also gives racial traits of the beings who live there, and just based on the bonuses and penalties to abilities and skills they get, you can get an idea for what kind of people they are.The game takes place in MS 5000 (5,000 years after the creation of the legendary Moonstone), which is fifty years before the events in the first Lone Wolf book. Therefore, the Kai Monastery still stands, the Darklords are still raising their armies before the march, and a Golden Age fluorishes, but the wise can see the trouble on the horizon. To use a Star Wars analogy, you play in the Rise of the Empire era, when the old empires are decaying and in decline, even though they keep telling themselves they're in a golden age. NPC classes (the commoner, adept, aristocrat, expert, warrior) are reworked into this game. They have had feats modified and consolidated into their class levels, and adepts have spells similar to those of Mages and Crystal Stars worked into their level progression. Specifically, similar to the Eberron game, it encrourages DMs to make most mundanes and even enemies PCs run into one of the NPC classes, instead of one of the PC race/classes. Monsters are included in a separate chapter. Monsters bring to life the world of Magnamund, and they suitably make some of these beasties just as scary in-game as they were when fighting them in the books. You have Giaks (basically think orcs crossed with klingons, and you're not far off), Doomwolves (think worgs), Kraan (think Nazguls from Lord of the Rings), and my personal favorite, Helghasts (a DM just CAN'T go wrong with a psychically active undead doppleganger that can ONLY be hurt by magic, and who can poison you with their weapons!)Now, with that said, the negatives of the book are many for someone who is not a fan of the series, but who rather is more accustomed to "traditional" d20. For one, the classes are not easily balanced against D&D or even d20 Modern classes; feats are rolled essentially into the class abilities of each class, and while balanced with the game itself, might be problematic with importing into another game. One would have to introduce the magic system as well as the classes, because spells are quite different, and ingrained into the classes. Interesting note - mage-types have a magic attack bonus as well as a regular attack bonus. Their magic attack bonus is aided by Intelligence bonuses, and progresses like a fighter.Multiclassing in the setting, as mentioned, is SEVERELY discouraged - to be a Kai Lord, you don't just "pick up a level" as in default D&D, it is expressly mentioned that you have to train for YEARS, from childhood usually. Same thing for most of the other classes, and in some cases (Crystal Stars and Bor Gunners), it's basically a high crime of State to teach the skills to someone not of that nation or in rare circumstances an allied nation. Dwarves Just DON'T teach their guin-skills at all to non-dwarves. But keeping in mind this setting was influenced by early RPGS like AD&D, the archetype concept is quite strongly in place in order to be faithful to the setting.SUMMARY:If you are a fan of Lone Wolf game books, this book is a MUST-HAVE. Five stars all the way. No Fooling. Go out and get it NOW. You're a dummy if you don't. If you are a d20 gamer who just wants a sourcebook to raid, this might not be for you. It's got some good ideas bound together, but each one is found in other OGL products (creative magic item names, class abilities in place of feats, consolidated skills like acrobatics, etc.) and doesn't have the unique flavor that these items are instilled with in Lone Wolf.I have a strong feeling that, unless I specifically run this for my players, and as a limited series at that, I will sadly get little to no use out of this book. However, that's the territory that comes with a product that emulates a specific setting very well.</blockquote>

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