Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

[pukunui]

4 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

I keep seeing people comparing this book to the 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. This isn't a campaign setting book. It's a player's guide. It would be more fair to compare it to 3e's Player's Guide to Faerûn and 4e's Forgotten Realms Player's Guide. It's also a lot like 2e's Forgotten Realms Adventures book, which was really just a quick update to bring the 1e "gray box" into the 2e era before the 2e "gold box" came out. Anyway, this book does what it was advertised to do: namely, it serves as a decent springboard for adventure on the Sword Coast. There's enough detail to whet your appetite and get you playing, but there's also enough wiggle room for your group to fill in the blanks yourselves. I, for one, am also glad that it's not overflowing with new character options. I'm pleased with WotC's new slow and steady approach in that regard. It does feel a bit thin, and there are a few embarrassing errors ("Moonshaes" misspelled as "Moonsheas" being one, and the lack of a scale on the map being another), but I think it gets the job done.

 

[Pauper]

4 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

If you're looking for a comprehensive setting guide for the entire Forgotten Realms setting, this isn't it. If you're looking for a player's guide with shiny new options for every class and race in the Player's Handbook, this isn't it. What this is is a book that contains a general overview of the changes in the nations of Faerun since the end of Fourth Edition, a more detailed view of the areas of the Sword Coast from the perspective of folks who live and travel there (a nice touch), and a section (about a third of the book) containing specific options for sub-classes specific to the Realms (like the bladesinger and battlerager), as well as ways to take existing Fifth Edition mechanics and adapt them to the Realms (for instance, the totems used by different Uthgardt barbarian tribes, or the bardic schools used by the different Faerunian bardic colleges). Given the small size, the book might have been better as a slightly cheaper soft-cover, but if you don't care about the price, you'll likely get a lot of use out of this book.

 

[Queer Venger]

5 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

This is a handy reference with many class/racial options. The book, however, is not a comprehensive setting guide, (akin to the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book from 3.5e) Id say this book is more of a Gazette. The book covers the entire Faerunian pantheon, and in this chapter, covers all the domains that clerics will use. While each deity entry is short, it gives you what you need to get you going. Id say this book is more for players than for DMs. Nevertheless, the production values continue to be those of the high caliber for 5e products.

 

[neobolts]

3 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

SCAG is a attractive and well laid out introduction to the Sword Coast region of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. There's a gentle primer for the rich-but-comfortable lore of FR: the various faiths, points of interest, and factions that seem familiar to fans of fantasy settings. It would be ideal for introducing first time players to the setting. Also, I've really enjoyed the additional class options and backgrounds added in SCAG. Arcana domain, City Watch, and Far Traveler are all standouts.While SCAG could certainly stand tall as a setting primer alongside the gazetteers of previous editions, it's hardcover release with a $40 MSRP is bound to create comparisons to previous setting megabooks, such as the full setting books of 3rd and 4th edition D&D. As such, it's important to understand that you are getting something equivalent to 3.x's Eberron Explorer's Handbook (a similar width hardcover) rather than the Eberron Campaign Setting book, and enjoy it for what it is.

 

[Nimor]

5 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

The book looks somewhat slim, but it packs a lot of background information that neatly connects the Player's Handbook to the Forgotten Realms game world. Plus it adds this depth without overwhelming the reader with a full-fledged campaign setting. I own the 3e and 4e Forgotten Realms campaign settings, which both felt more like a lexicon than like a book one would enjoy reading front to back. SCAG works better for me in this regard.

 

[lkj]

4 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

I think this makes an excellent player's guide and a useful resource for DM's as well. It gives enough information about FR and its history to give you context without overwhelming with detail. I very much enjoyed the style of having each region detailed by a potentially unreliable narrator-- made for an easy read. The class options are fun, relevant and fairly easily convertible to other settings. Overall, a good book.

 

[MNblockhead]

4 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

I paid an early-buyer tax. $40 was a bit too much for the book and it already sells for $26 on Amazon. At around $25, this book would be well worth the cost. Even at the $40, however, it is not a rip off. Like the core rule books for 5e, the quality of the printing and the writing are top notch. I run a home-brew campaign and have no intention of running or playing in a FR campaign, but I really enjoyed reading through the book. I appreciate the section at the end that provides suggestions for adopting some of the character classes and races to other campaign settings, including home-brew settings. I don't understand reviewers complaining about the amount of "fluff." I would expect that a campaign-setting book would be primarily flavor. That's what I was hoping for and that's what I got, and I enjoyed it. I do agree with reviewers complaining about the map. At the $40 I spent on the book, I would have felt that money was better spent if it came with a fold out map or a poster map. Having the left-side of the map get lost in the fold is thoughtless. It is annoying not being able to see certain areas referred to in the text because part of the map is lost to the crack. The city maps are also not so useful, but I see this is the high-level stuff. One would hope that future adventure modules or perhaps some city-specific guides will be released that give more detail to the cities. I read the recent Chris Perkins interview about them looking into other campaign settings. I would rather they focus their efforts for the first couple years on fleshing out FR in more detail. Publish some atlas style books, city guides, and adventurer guides for other parts of the world. Even thought I'm not playing FR, more detailed maps could be repurposed for my custom campaign. I'm more likely to buy such materials than the adventure paths they've been putting out.In short, now that you can buy this book new for around $25, it is well worth adding to your collection.

 

[Corpsetaker]

1 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

I'm going to have to give this book a 2 because it doesn't know exactly what it's trying to be. The bread and butter of the Forgotten Realms is it's attention to detail and it's deep lore, this books fail to give any of that. What makes it worse is it doesn't even give that for the Sword Coast even though it's in the name. It does a poor job at being an overall guide and an even poorer job of being a regional guide. This should have been a free PDF download.

 

[DiceClay]

1 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

Brutal. Fluff re the Realms. Nothing so hot about races classes

 

[darjr]

5 out of 5 rating for Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

The writing in this book is excellent and while I'm not a huge Forgotten Realms fan I do appreciate it and the content in this book.

What can I add that others have not? Well, I haven't seen this pointed out, the Bibliography is fantastic. I intend to hunt down many if not all of the material referenced in it.