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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009436" data-attributes="member: 1129">Masters of ArmsWritten by Steven Palmer PetersonPublished by Second World Simulationswww.Second-World-Simulations.com96 b & w pages$18.95So what is Masters of Arms?  How about a book that adds a new idea to the D20 mix by means of combinations and showcases how to use that idea in thirty prestige classes that often wield unusual weapons?Steven Palmer provides the reader with a lengthy explanation of what a combination is.  More or less, it’s the ability to sacrifice some part of an attack to gain a benefit on another attack.  It’s not just a changing of attack bonuses to hit either, but can involve damage multipliers, penetrating armor values, and other bonuses.  He provides formulas that actually break down the math in such detail that he recommends a spreadsheet to handle the calculations.  It looks balanced but to be honest, I haven’t gone through the process as it is lengthy and hey, he’s done a lot of the work for me with the rest of the book; Prestige Classes.Here’s the good news.  There are something like thirty prestige classes with lots of different weapon focuses to choose from.  Each one gains either a special ability or a feat from a selected list of feats at each level.  These feats tend to be a little underpowered and don’t have to be selected in any order (for the most part) that allows the player to customize his character as he builds it.  Here’s some more good news.  The author knows that people enjoy games that often rely on a Would Point/Vitality Point system ala Forbidden Kingdoms and includes some conversion notes in grayed off sections and a Defense Bonus in the ability breakdown table.The Prestige Classes have all the goods that you need except for abbreviation.  You get a quick description, hit die, requirements, skills, features and descriptions of the feats and special abilities.  Some of the class descriptions are amusing like the Scythe Master.  “Death carries a scythe and if it’s good enough for him it’s good enough for you.”  The feats all work towards pushing the envelope in power and rely a little on the combination maneuver.  For example, Careful Attack, a feat for Rapier Master’s, sacrifices the first attack and provides a +8 bonus to hit with the second attack.  This means that many of these abilities won’t be of use to lower level characters as the combination maneuvers rely on the character having multiple attacks which generally aren’t available until 6th level for characters with a fighter base attack bonus.My favorites I admit tend to be the munchkin ones like the Dual Swords Master and the Two Axe Fighting Master, and that actually hails from my days of 2nd edition play with the first being a human fighter and the second a dwarven fighter.  Ah, the glories of being able to recreate your old characters in a new system to make them ever more powerful and fitting into the ideas you originally had for them.Of course GMs are going to get a lot more use out of this book simply be virtue of being able to create any type of character without going through the requirements.  And this can be a good thing because some of these classes may be a little too esoteric for some.  Take the Tensile Mercury Weapon Master.  This PrC is based around a new type of weapon, the Tensile Mercury Weapon, which takes a feat to use and another feat to master.  If the DM is very slow to use these types of weapons, the willingness of a player to take the feats to get into this PrC are slim to none.  However, a DM can have an NPC with the item and feats easily and can showcase the strange abilities of this weapon, which can turn into any weapon the user wills.  The focus on the Tensile is changing the weapon to take advantage of weakness within a foe’s defense or using combination maneuvers to prepare the foe to defend one way and change the weapon to another form to gain an advantage.Here’s the bad news.  Let’s take the Legendary PrCs from the various Path books.  I’m doing this because it’s somewhat similar.  The Legendary classes have a list of abilities they can select from to customize their character.  The trick here though, is they provide more abilities than can be selected by the character.  In Masters of Arms, if you go through the whole PrC, you’ll have every ability and this means that two 5th level fighters/10th level Precision Sword Masters, will have the exact same abilities with their precision Sword Master abilities.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it does limit the unique factor that’s common at the lower levels.  In addition, because some abilities require multiple feats, you’ll know if a character pulls stunt Y he’s got to have at least stun A, B and C behind him as well.  Here’s more bad news.  Because some of the feats are open to different weapons, you’ll be more tempted to take them with the feats maked with an * because doing so allows you to use those other weapons with the feats.  This once again tends to limit the variety.  What do I mean?  Let’s take a look at the Kusarigama Master.  At first level, they get a feat.  Any feat they take here will only be useable with the kusarigama.  At second level they get a feat marked with an *.  This means any feat they take will have the full range of weapons that are detailed under the “Allowed Weapons” section of the feat.  In this case, let’s say he takes Chain Entangle.  He’d be able to use it with flails, spiked chains, kusarigamas and whips.  If he took that at first level, he’d only be able to use it with the kusarigama.Part of the fun of the book is the writing.  While its not going to appeal to everyone, the frequent references to old favorites like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the Dual Sai Wielders and Dual Sword Wielders, along with text like on the back cover “will not compensate you for mental anguish or possible psychiatric bills.”  On the other hand, the writing doesn’t always work out as he uses words like pretty to help define something.  One thing I’ve tried to eliminate from my vocabulary in almost 99% of speech is words like basically, pretty, kinda and seems.  Can you make some pretty cool maneuvers or can you make some cool maneuvers?  Personal writer’s preference there, so others may not mind it but find the descriptions with the off key references boorish.  I don’t like the cover.  While it stands out due to the vivid yellow, I can’t tell if this guy is riding the creature or fighting it and I’m left wondering what’s that around his neck.  It does remind me of an old John Carpenter of Mars bit and seems to stand out as some alien landscape like Talislanta or Tribe 8.The layout is standard two columns with tables, art and notes on WP/VP boxed off to break up the monotony.  Most of the art falls within the good range with some great pieces and some not so good illustrations cropping up.  Some of the pictures stand on their own merely through what they represent though.  For me, one of my favorites has got to be the Alpha Beast.  Here, a mere cat sits atop a huge pile of dead wolves with blood dripping from one of its claws.  Text to white space ratio is good and the text is easy to read.Masters of Arms provides the reader with lots of options to customize his fighter while providing the d20 system with what appears to be a balanced combat maneuver generator.  If the author can include a web enhancement with more specific feats for each class and a list of abbreviations, the book, for what it does, the book would be even better.  If the art and layout could be knocked up just a notch or two, just a notch mind you, and augmented with the riddance of words like “pretty”, the book would jump up another category.  If the author took a more 3rd person off hands writing as professional, it’d probably make some more people happy.  For me, I know I’ll be humming the old Heroes in a Half Shell when I whip out a revised draft of an old character as a mind-controlled NPC against my players and watch them strive to overcome the unleashed Turtle Power he brings with his Dual Swords.</blockquote>

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