Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

[Jester David]

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

I liked this book. But I’m still conflicted on whether it was the book I wanted.

It’s unquestionably a good book. As mentioned, this book is really a updated version of the Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide. Arguably, it’s much better than that book, with stronger descriptions and more detail on the places, gods, and races. It is more focused than its predecessor on being a player-friendly book of lore. It’s probably a useful book to hand to any player new to the Realms, regardless of the era being played.I’m uncertain if it’s the best choice for the first non-adventure book for 5th Edition. It’s great to give players involved in the Forgotten Realms a product that introduces them to the setting, but that’s weakened if there’s nothing comparable for the Dungeon Master to help them set a story in the Realms. It’s nice to have some new mechanical options for Realms characters, but that’s weakened by the need for more generic content. Conversely, new options are desirable, but paying $40 for a dozen pages of content is steep.

To some extent it makes sense as a business decision. There is a wealth of Forgotten Realms campaign books for past editions available from used game stores or as PDFs, so a new campaign guide is less needed. But making the first splatbook a sourcebook encourages people to buy that book even if they wouldn’t normally buy a setting book, introducing new people to the Realms and possibly making them fans of the setting.

But this is all beside the point and is pretty much completely and totally irrelevant to an actual review of this book. At the end of the day, this book is excellent at what it does and for what it is. It may be a poor splatbook, but that’s like calling an apple a poor orange. If you want a player’s guide to the Sword Coast region of the Forgotten Realms or an introduction to that setting, this is an excellent product.

Read my full review HERE

 

[Wulfang]

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

My gripe with this product is not so much the content within, but its presentation.Its not quite a regional sourcebook, not quite a campaign setting and not quite a player's guide. So what is it? Honestly, its just a splat book to cover the Rage of Demons storyline and upcoming game Sword Coast Legends game. Its a much needed interim-book that updates the Realms and gives us Realms-specific PC backgrounds and sub-classes. The problem with this is, the steep price for the few pages and the feeling that something is missing. Even though the material within is great, I couldn't help but feeling cheated when comparing to my mighty 3.5 tome Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Wheres my box-set? Wheres my printed fold-out map? Wheres the rest of the realms? Why does the book look like every other 5E book rather than having its own art-style?

 

[EthanSental]

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

My copy came in via Amazon today and looking through it, I'm still impressed by the art and overall design and layout. I probably dropped it a star due to the gods getting too much attention but other seem to like it. I'd rather have more story content and as others have mentioned, character options but overall a solid book to own.I don't get the posts about the price and the page count. I do try to support my local store where I spend $100 a month on comics but its hard to complain about the price when you can get it for 24 and some change on Amazon, all the book are around $30. If full prices is seen as a drawback, then look at other options that are easy to find so a person doesn't have to pay full retail price.

 

[Chimpy]

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

I was pretty impressed with the sections about the lands and organisations of the Sword Coast area. For someone like me who is only vaguely familiar with the setting, the level of detail seemed about right and the quality was very good.But then it just stops and goes into a few player options...If there had been some sections on adventure sites, local threats and dangers, perhaps some monsters, adventure inspiration and so on, the product would have been great.3.5/5

 

[The Escapist]

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

Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, taken as a whole, is not a very good roleplaying game book. It's a 20-page whirlwind tour of thirty-some years of Forgotten Realms history and geography, a kinda-useful 40-page whirlwind tour of the Sword Coast region. The rest of the book is 60 pages of mostly-superfluous descriptions of what standard D&D characters are like in the realms, with scattered nuggets of game mechanics customizing specific classes, a few alternate racial mechanics, and a trove of backgrounds. None of these sections particularly excels. It's a 160 page, $40, full color hardback book - and much of what sets the high standard it fails to achieve is that $40 price point.

 

[Sizzlan]

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

My impression is very positive. The book finds the right level of detail for my needs. Little is defined, much is only noted, most things remain somewhat nebulous. Somehow everything from past editions falls into place. This book is definitely something you can build on and actually use at the gaming table.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

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

The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is a player focused introduction to the Realms with a lot of flavor, the right amount of detail for a player, and a light amount of additional crunch. It fills it's role perfectly. I particularly like the long descriptions of how each subclass fits into the setting.

It has a few flaws. The decision to place the map so that the Neverwinter region is falling into the gutter of the book was very unfortunate, and I'm not particularly fond of the style of the city maps.

The biggest flaw with this book doesn't have anything to do with the book itself. It's the secrecy of Wizards of the Coast. I'm a DM, and the SCAG isn't a sufficient update to the Realms for that role. It clearly isn't intended to be. But I have no idea when, or even if I'm going to ever see the product I really want. I've sat down for a meal, but they've only given me the drink menu.

That aside, I recommend the book for any Realms player.

 

[Ancalimon417]

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

It seems as though most of the content being delivered by WOTC to support the 5e rules has come across in a disjointed and unorganized way. This in my opinion also shows up in the content of the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. Its like the development team for D&D doesn't have a well defined vision for where they want to take D&D and just keeps throwing stuff against the wall to see if it sticks, or they don't have the resources left to make the content rich products of editions past. The SCAG throws more stuff into the D&D mix with disjointed sections on describing the Sword Coast and its environs, repeats a lot of information on races which we already knew, puts some mix and match together of some limited new class features and some backgrounds to go with them and even puts some icing on the cake with some new cantrips for wizards, warlocks etc. The book just seems - random? Its like the developers wanted to put out a book with something in it so they threw what limited information they had on some paper and sold it to a marketplace that is hungry for D&D 5e content. Previous editions of books such as the "Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting" published in 2001 was an actual resource book that puts the information contained in the SCAG to shame. I understand that the older book had more of the Forgotten Realms world to describe, but it felt much more rich in content. I would have given a lower rating but gave it a 3 star just because something is better than nothing at this point.

 

[Hand of Evil]

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

It is good but a lot of material that we know from past editions, this should have been produced as a PDF.

 

[Osgood]

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

Nice amount of fluff for those interested in the Forgotten Realms, though I would have preferred more locations and adventure hooks and less emphasis on the gods. The character options are pretty good, though I wish there would have been more of them. I felt some of the new class options were cop outs--new fluff for an existing PHB option. I was disappointed that only one of the new backgrounds had new traits/ideals/bonds/flaws. A worthwhile buy if you are interested in the Realms, but it falls a bit flat if you are mostly looking for new crunch options.