Swashbuckling Adventures (D20 7th Sea)

[Wolfx]

I agree with the need for some sort of game mechanic so that a player has a chance to find the weakness in a school and be able to exploit it. I am running with a Knowledge (Nation Swordman school) as a class skill if you hail from a pparticular nation, cross-class otherwise. The check is made at a DC15 + Level in the school. The reason for it starting at 15 is that I figured that as one progresses in level he able to hide or counter his own weakness.

On a successful check you choose to either get a +1 on your attack, damage or AC. Now these are raw right now and I will see how they work at my first game next weekend, but any suggestions would be appreciated.

On the subject of the Arcana Feats, in the original you could just spend an action dice and activate any Hubris you wanted to friends or enemies. The rule hasn't changed, and I don't think it needs to. Most good players will only use it on friends when the situation needs it to be done and on the enemy as soon at it would benefit the group.

Please stop stating the fact that you have a problem with the editing. We have all read it on 3 seperate forums and we know.
AEG has never had the best editing since the start and I don't see them changing. Some games come out great and others miss the mark. That is the way of it when you have too many product lines to focus on. Something always has to suffer.

 

[Wolfx]

I also wanted to say if any of you have seen the Fading Suns d20 they have a better way to handle Cloak Fighting (with a feat) and some cool rules for even better Masterwork weapons (masterwork, Exemplary & Supreme) that work well with a game that doesn't have a lot of magical equipment.

You should check it out.

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

After looking at some of the sword fighting school p-classes what I think I am going to do when I rewrite them is tweak some rules within each class to illustrate how the weakness affects the style.
For example, the Donovan Swordsman class specifies that its users leave a brief hole in their defenses when using some of the school's thrusts. I see no mechanic in the rules for the class that account for this, so I will probably go through the class abilities and add a penalty to AC when performing X or Y to reinforce the style's drawback.

I like the idea of granting a skill check to determine a school's weakness. I would probably use a more general Knowledge skill, or alternately allow a separate Knowledge skill for each fighting style, with a more general one that can cover all style with a higher DC. Then it would be a matter of writing into each fighting style class a note stating that when another fighter figures out the style's weakness, So and So happens.
Yes it is some work, but I think it makes these style-based classes all the more realistic and unique.

I also think some of these prestige classes are overpowered or don't quite match the tone I need, so I will probably rewrite some aspects to account for this.

Still, so far, worth the $30 I paid for it. After reading about 1/4 of it, I would have to say I am happy with my new OGC sourcebook (I'm not kidding myself that I bought it for any other reason).

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Please stop stating the fact that you have a problem with the editing. We have all read it on 3 seperate forums and we know.

Are you trying to tell me what to do? Cuz that just ain't gonna work!

The editing is so bad it's worth mentioning over and over.

 

[ascendance]

I picked up Swashbuckling Adventures today, and I haven't noticed all those glaring, horrible editing errors people are talking about. Whatever the case, the editing isn't as horrible as Mechanical Dream, which should really get an award for bad editing ("When your players come to conscience..."). Heck, I don't think the writing or editing is as awful as the average White Wolf product.

I do, however, think you get a lot of bang for your buck. There's excessive amount of crunch and power escalation, and if that's your thing, Swashbuckling Adventures is truly a prize. Bear in mind, however, that its supposed to simulate swashbuckling, cinematic action where swordsmen are gods among men. Also, if there are some horribly abusive feats (Accurate Archer comes to mind), the bad guys can have it too! I guess those spellcasters with Shield aren't so tough anymore. And, in defense of Accurate Archer, I think its what's supposed to put bows on par with rapid-reloaded guns.

 

[Raptor]

I like Swashbuckling Adventures despite its editing flaws. Its a system my gaming group can get into unlike the original 7th Sea which they had problems with. My main problems with the book is leaving out glamour, porte etc and including the witch and that classes spell list. BTW when does the Magic of Theah get released?

 

[tsadkiel]

Hey, what's the spell list for the swashbuckling Witch like? Any healing? (I'm guessing not a lot of "smashy, smashy" spells, but I haven't seen the class yet, so I don't know.)

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

I picked up Swashbuckling Adventures today, and I haven't noticed all those glaring, horrible editing errors people are talking about.

Try reading it five or six times. You'll find 'em!

 

[ascendance]

I like Swashbuckling Adventures despite its editing flaws. Its a system my gaming group can get into unlike the original 7th Sea which they had problems with. My main problems with the book is leaving out glamour, porte etc and including the witch and that classes spell list. BTW when does the Magic of Theah get released?

I'm not sorry to miss the 7th Sea magic system. I assume that Swashbuckling Adventures is supposed to be a generic D20 supplement with some Theah bits, kinda like OA. The campaign-specific magical classes can be stuck somewhere else, where I can ignore them.

Though Fate Witches are kinda cool.

 

[EYaple]

Well as the lead writer for the project and the brainchild of the project I will admit that editing was a problem with the book. The main problem comes in the fact that the book has 220+ pages of mechanics and finding a mechanics writer that can keep his eyes open for that long and not become wall eyed (well I bet you cannot do it in a couple of weeks ). From my perspective, being a lousy editor myself, Rob and Nancy did pretty well and least translating my CCG speak to RPG speak... There comes a point where the editing has to cut off and the book has to go to layout.

To answer Kaptain Kaos' concerns...

Arcane feats are there for option use. A disclaimer is provided. They are there for the "role" playing gamer who enjoys social interaction. They were only included to keep the 7th Sea fans happy. The way you use them is typically they are activated before a player declares an action. Personally I would never use them, but I know others who would and do...

The weaknesses were originally included in the design of the class, but nothing that we came up with worked well, AND matched what they did in the d10 version. The choice was made by me, as I wrote ALL of the swordsman schools (as well as a lot of items, core classes, feats, advanced rules and a whole raft of stuff that was pushed off for Magic of Theah), to cut that section. The flavor about weaknesses was left as flavor. Personally I am impressed that you read the entire intro, I usually skip that stuff and get to the rules . From my CCG days I am use to having flavor that does not totally mesh with Rules, that choice may have been influenced by that background.

Background Feats: Actually these are "Profession" Feats, and the skill requirement is there, because something with an ongoing benefit that you will affect you over and over should have some cost. Also they were intended to represent what your character currently makes a living at, without having to default to a CClass.

I thank you for your interest in the book, if you like you can email direct any time, except weekends, when I will not get to until Monday.