Swashbuckling Adventures: 7th Sea d20 review

[Samurai]

I'm not sure if you'd consider Otherworld Creations a "major company" alongside AEG, but their Forbidden Kingdoms is the worst editted D20 product I have ever seen. I have not had a chance to look at this book yet, though. Sounds to me like a cut and paste job that was glossed over once with some d20 rules.

When will companies learn that a decent editor is a valuable part of the mix in creating a quality product? I was an English teacher, so these kinds of mistakes make me cringe even more than usual. Heck, if any company is looking to hire a good editor, one who can proof-read, correct mistakes in both rules and writing, coordinate with writers and artists, etc, I'm interested in the job...

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Editing is apparently not important to these companies. Haven't seen Forbidden Kingdoms yet, but I'll take your word for it, LOL.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Anybody else see this book yet or buy it?

 

[Xeriar]

I'm not sure if you'd consider Otherworld Creations a "major company" alongside AEG, but their Forbidden Kingdoms is the worst editted D20 product I have ever seen. I have not had a chance to look at this book yet, though. Sounds to me like a cut and paste job that was glossed over once with some d20 rules.

The problem is that some of these systems have little in the way of making sense in d20 mechanics.

L5R loses a lot of flavor and polish going over to d20, making it a completely different game entirely.

With L5R, however, AEG had WotC's Oriental Adventures to go by. 7th Sea has no such guideline, so aside from the huge assortment of schools (prestige classes), not much can be carried over.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

7th Sea had D&D 3e to go by, as well as all the OGL 3rd party material out there. I know that's not the same, but it's not like they were flying blind.

And they didn't even TRY to convert a bunch of things when that was the WHOLE POINT of the book. The book was rushed and never completely finished. The editing was virtually non-existent.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Here is my "rant" thread to AEG about this in d20 Publishers:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17277

Also, here is my "praise" thread and preview of Swashbuckling Adventures' OGL background feats in House Rules:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17289

Check them out!

Also, I would like to hear what others thought of the book.

 

[roytheodd]

The 90 Prestige Classes are mostly the sword schools from the original 7th Sea. Personally, I think that AEG has done an admirable job of converting the sword schools to d20 as well. My friend has been playing 7th Sea for years and after spending about a 1/2 hour thumbing through the book he gave it a big thumbs up. He likes a lot of the "fits" that AEG made in squeezing its square peg game into the round hole of d20. It's not a perfect conversion, but then what is?

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Yes, but why mention the weaknesses of these sword schools in the flavor text, then fail to follow up with how to exploit them in the rules? Only a single school does this--the rest are all blank.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

*bump*

Damn thread keeps dropping off the boards... **grumble**

 

[Seth Mason]

Courtier class

There's a class in there called the courtier that should fit what you're looking for. I designed it, along with the wanderer (glad you liked it, Kaptain) and a few other new classes.

Rich Wulf designed the Courtier class presented initially in Rokugan and then apparently used for the 7th Sea d20 book. I would consider myself a pretty good authority on this matter, since I actually worked on the Rokugan book and don't recall a "Mike Mearls" ever contributing to the work at all. The 7th Sea book may be a different matter entirely, but if they used the same class as presented in Rokugan, I fail to see how anyone else could be the author of it. I would be very interested in hearing how this confusion started so it can be avoided in the future.


Seth Mason