Review: Advanced Players Manual (Long)

[Psion]

I gotta say, it's not blowing my skirt up. I mean it's a quality book, but for the most part it seems like it tries to address needs that were already well satisfied.

Further, the Cry Havoc combat system is not my favorite mass combat system. I find table based attack charts clunky, and the space rules illogical, and neither of these aspects of the combat system are corrected in this book.

 

[Scarbonac]

Hmmm, sounds interesting. I'll have to at least leaf through a copy.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I gotta say, it's not blowing my skirt up. I mean it's a quality book, but for the most part it seems like it tries to address needs that were already well satisfied.

Further, the Cry Havoc combat system is not my favorite mass combat system. I find table based attack charts clunky, and the space rules illogical, and neither of these aspects of the combat system are corrected in this book.

Well, I'm a little worried now. You and I don't always have the same taste but are pretty similiar most of the time.

 

[Crothian]

It is hit and miss, there is some stuff I like and some stuff I don't. I agree with Psion on the m,ass combat rules being clunky.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Ah, good old mass combat. It's not an easy thing to handle and heck, Green Ronin's done it enough times that I have to wonder why they went with Cry Havoc. Testament and Black Company have mass combat.

And on one hand, I can't help wonder why the Psychic is in this book. It's an interesting take on psionics/mental powers, but does it need to be in this type of book?

In some ways, I think that Monte set up some good ideas in his Arcana Unearthed alternative product.

 

[Crothian]

And on one hand, I can't help wonder why the Psychic is in this book. It's an interesting take on psionics/mental powers, but does it need to be in this type of book?.

I tink it is perfect for this type of book. THe Psycvhic class is a good player option, and that is what the book is filled with. Personally, I question why the luck skill, the race points, and mass combat are in there. Those three things seem more DM material then player for me.

 

[JoeGKushner]

That's a good point.

What I meant was that since the Psychic Handbook is already out, do we really need this information in here?

Do they include the PrCs and other goods from that book? Is it exactly the same thing? I just don't like trying to compare X with Y on a line by line basis and wonder how much is a straight reprint as opposed to an update. The psychic was 3.5 already.

 

[Crothian]

It is pretty much just the class, feat, and skills. I don't have the book with the class in so, it's nice to get that all again. I think it is exactly the same, least I haven't read anything like that.

 

[Garnfellow]

Ah, good old mass combat. It's not an easy thing to handle and heck, Green Ronin's done it enough times that I have to wonder why they went with Cry Havoc. Testament and Black Company have mass combat.

Yeah, I really wondered about that decision as well. At first blush, both the Black Company and Testament systems seem much stronger to me than the Cry Havoc system. I had rather hoped that Skip would revise his mass combat system in light of some common complaints -- most notably, the funky scaling rules. (They did, at least, include sample units, which was probably the second most frequent complaint about Cry Havoc.)

I agree with many of the other posters that the Advanced Players Manual is pretty hit-or-miss. Everything is well edited, and the rule implementations are always fine, but much of it just leaves me . . . flat. Take the Scout class, for example. It's OK, maybe a bit too weak, but it really pales beside two recent, great renditions of a Scout -- the first in Complete Adventurer, and the second in Green Ronin's own Black Company Campaign Settimg.

I know it's a fine line, given just how much people here are grumbling about the inclusion of the Psychic class material, but Green Ronin has already published so many good player options in other supplements that I would have been perfectly happy to have had more those options compiled, updated, and pressed into service for this book.

Take the Piety system, for example. Green Ronin included different versions in Testament and the Trojan War book. I would have loved to have seen a Piety system for standard d20 fantasy.

 

[MerricB]

Rather unhappy with the inclusion of the Cry Havoc mass combat rules...

Incidentally, am I the only one who gave a thumbs down to Cry Havoc in a review? (I gave it 2 out of 5).

Cheers!