Relics & Rituals: Excalibur -- Any thoughts?

[Neo]

Personally, I never want major NPCs statted in game books. If they're going to be used in the game, I will stat them up.

Thanks for the review, Psion. I had a quick look at this at my FLGS last week and thought it looked interesting but, due to previous bad experiences with S&SS products, I thought I would wait for a few reviews before purchasing it.

Im with Derul to a degree on this one, I want backgrounds, I want Illustrations, I want info on items of note and I want roleplaying notes and suggestions for the significant NPC's but stat blocks aren't particularly necessary, and if they become so I can stat them to meet whatever campaign ends I need them to meet.

 

[Talmun]

Because we don't presume that Arthur or Merlin... hold up, rewind.

Because we don't presume that the High King, the Court Wizard, the Most Valiant Knight, the Purest Knight, or any of the other archetypes you favor are NPCs. Maybe they're PCs. <snip>

Ok, fair enough. I can appreciate that line of thinking (I can certainly appreciate that thinking actually went into this product, as opposed to some RPG products I can name), I still would've liked to have 'official stats' or at least a detailed history of each main Arthurian character; after all, they are integral to the feel and history of the setting, IMO: I would've been more likely to buy it that way. Anyhow, as I said, I found the book interesting and I may pick the book up before long.

On a related note, I have Relics & Rituals I and II and love both.

 

[Wombat]

I picked the book up due to my fascination with All Thing Arthurian (hmmm, sounds like a show on NPR...). While I find some of it intriguing, I am confused by other sections.

One of my biggest confusions is the difference between their two baseline settings: Arthurian & Excalibur.

The Excalibur setting makes some sense from their definition -- it is essentially the uber-high magic, standard D&D-ness with a few touches of the Arthurian legends attached to it. You have multiple races, lots of flinging fireballs, etc., but you also have the Heraldry Domain for clerics and the Honor Point system.

The Arthurian setting, however, is a huge jumble that ends up defining absolutely nothing. "The advice given for Arthurian campaigns at large showcases the many different approaches one can take to incorporating (or, if necessary, excluding) the core classes into a game, be it gritty low-magic fantasy set in Arthur's England or a high-maigc chivalric campaign set in a particularly chivalrous feudal realm in a more 'archetypal' fantasy world." (R&R: Ex p30). So, "Arthurian" means grim and gritty, except when it doesn't, and it means low magic, except when it doesn't. Further on you find it means historically accurate, except when it doesn't. Ultimately I think the folks at S&S would have been better served if they had not really talked about the Arthurian setting and just stuck with the Excalibur setting. The only other option would have been to split the Arthurian setting into two (or more) sub-settings (say, an Arthurian setting for low-magic/gritty and a Camelot setting for high magic/fantastical), but that is just an idea.

For a High Fantasy, High Magic, Elves-as-knights setting the R&R: Ex is pretty good. I don't want to downplay what is available in the volume. I haven't finished reading through the entire book yet, but so far I have found very little I would cull from it for forthcoming campaigns. OTOH, I will look better on the shelf than I, Mordred, which means all is good.

 

[MerricB]

Because we don't presume that Arthur or Merlin... hold up, rewind.

Because we don't presume that the High King, the Court Wizard, the Most Valiant Knight, the Purest Knight, or any of the other archetypes you favor are NPCs. Maybe they're PCs. Maybe you want to run a high-level game where one of the PCs is the High King, another is the Court Wizard (perhaps a tiefling or half-fiend) who advises him, a third is the Champion of the Realm, and so on.

I rather like that approach - well done for adopting it!

Did you mention this in the book, though? I find it great when rulebooks include sections discussing why various things were designed the way they were - like the Behind the Curtain sidebars in the DMG.

Cheers!

 

[Psion]

Perhaps it might be worthwhile to do quick writeups of what class/levels you think various figures from Arthurian lore various figures are, so it can help some of us put names to holders of the classes.

 

[MaxKaladin]

I really like the book. The lack of NPC stats doesn't bother me in the least. The only thing I've really missed would be more concrete options for toning down arcane magic in campaigns so that you don't have the wizards fireballing all the knights all the time before they ever get to melee.