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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2009658" data-attributes="member: 18387">By Bruce Boughner, Staff Reviewer and Co-host of Mortality.net Radio This review is for Masters of Arms by Second World Simulations, which is 96 pages in length and carries a retail price of $18.95. Usually, when I look at a book of fighter skills and classes, I judge by my own, some-what large wealth of immediate and intimate knowledge of sword swinging, having been a heavy-armored fighter in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) for almost 18 years and a rapier fighter for about 3 years. I keep looking for the rising ‘J’ shot, a retique, a molinet, a windmill or the flashy showboat Kali cut to be made into gaming terms. In this regard, this book let me down >sigh<. But mi compadre Steve Peterson (SWS-Steve of the Mortality.net boards) did NOT disappoint in the regard of he took a good number of weapons and combinations and gave them feats enough to make prestige classes out of the masters of these fighting styles. This is not even limited to standard weapons, Steve has brought together 3 dozen styles, many traditional combinations like sword and shield master, bow master or rapier master but also some exotic style like Rod of Lordly Might Master, Alpha Beast and Tensile Mercury Master. New weapons are introduced, like the Sai, Three-pieced Staff and the Kusarigama. While some of these are very familiar from previous works and other sources (like Daredevil and Iron Fist Marvel Comics), they are potent weapons to be sure. The Tensile Mercury weapon is listed as psycho-active metal but it isn’t specified as purely a psionic material. This is followed by a maneuver combination generator. It is self-described as not for the faint of heart. It requires many calculations, but the results seem solid enough (maybe I’ll get that ‘J’ shot yet!!). Each of the weapon master classes are presented in standard form and are prefaced with the requirement of actually mastering the weapon that they are named. Obviously some classes generated more feats than others, but they average out around 9-10 feats per class. Each class comes with its own set of goodies. The Bow Master, for instance, has a feat called ‘Threading the Needle’, mimicking Robin Hood’s splitting the arrow stunt. Sherwood fans can also gain a Quarterstaff Mastery for that forest campaign. Conan fans, fret naught, the MoA has several classes to satisfy the barbarian hoard. The Two-Axe Master is right in the vein of Kull the Conqueror giving a cross-bind and dual strike feats. Ivanhoe and Arthur aficionados can revel in the Great Sword and Sword and Shield masteries giving them decent sword strike maneuvers. The great foes of the Crusader, the Saracen infidels can field a great Scimitar Master for their defense. Others get more esoteric, the Blinking Master requires that you possess some form of blinking magic readily at your disposal, a spell or a Ring of Blinking, and then it develops feats based on the Blinking fighter. The Immovable Rod Master has some rather unique feats like slow fall that prevents full falling damage. The Rod of Lordly Might and Tensile Mercury Masters have similar requirement and feats, the difference laying mostly in the origin of the weapon. The Telekinesis Master allows for the usage of weapons by a telekinetic and has some impressive feats like Slam-Stab and Simultaneous Attack. The Oriental Master include the Dual Sai Master, the Kusarigama Master (a Kama {ax} with a weighted chain attached) and the Three Sectioned Staff Master are given, the Great sword, Bow Dual Sword, Sword and Dagger and others can be adapted from European weapons to Oriental equivalents with a little work. Besides the Rapier Master, the class I found the most intriguing was the Improvised Weapons Master, much like Jackie Chan in ‘Drunken Master’, this guy can turn anything or anyone into a weapon and has the feats to turn a melee into a scene from ‘Shanghai Noon’. This work provides a good amount of not only character use, but NPC material for your campaign. Here is the material to make the mentor or tutor of your characters. Imagine a quest for the Mako-like character from Highlander 3 to remake a masterwork sword and having to learn a new style to defend him while he repairs the blade. A very well done accessory indeed, redundant, maybe, but I found enough material in it to make it worth MY while.To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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