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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 1551603" data-attributes="member: 8461">To be fair, I can see how my description would make it sound that way - in fact, it's not that way at all (there were several points where I was snickering out loud at parts of it, drawing quizzical looks from my non-RPG-playing family).The book does use quite a bit of math (which translates into some tables that can seem somewhat daunting), but the thing to understand is that most of the number-crunching has been done, and you're just looking at the results; these guys have done the hard part, and are just presenting the conclusions.That said, the tone of the book itself is rather humorous, the authors let a bit of personal voice shine through, and it comes out sounding rather grizzled, but in a tongue-in-cheek manner, regarding combat ("The only people who should ever, ever use a crossbow are 95-pound weaklings with a Strength of 9 or less.").To address another point, while this book does obviously emphasize (nonmagical melee/ranged) combat above all other aspects of the game (mostly because that's what this books theme is), it does so in, as stated above, a humorous manner - no one should think that this is seriously denigrating the role-players, spellcasters, etc. Likewise, the book doesn't try to fit all the combatants into a single mold - there's a sidebar right on page 4 that says that's impossible. Rather, it says to think about the kind of warrior you want (distance fighter, up close and avoiding being hit, etc), and tells you various class combos, feat trees, skill sets, etc. that you can use to get that character archetype. You will never have a "perfect" combatant, because there are different ways to engage in combat.Finally, I honestly don't see how this book could possibly bog down a game. The seven chapters cover ability scores, race, class, skills, feats, equipment, and combat tactics. Virtually all but the last one are things you do between games anyway. I can't recall a game where one person ground a game to a halt in mid-session because he was allocating skill points still. Even the combat section just breaks down the pros and cons of the PHB special combat actions (overrun, trip, sunder, etc.), which (from what I've seen) tend to get ignored somewhat, so in that regard it makes that portion of the game more interesting because it reminds the reader why it's good to use special maneuvers instead of standing there and whacking the monsters over and over.Seriously, this product was a joy to read, and I'm glad to have gotten it. I'd encourage everyone to at least read it before deciding if it's for you or not. It caters to a specific aspect of the game (that aspect being: how to kill things better), but it does so very well.</blockquote>

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