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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Soulmage" data-source="post: 2011891" data-attributes="member: 5403">A Little BackgroundI've been a fan of Glen Cook's Black Company novels ever since I read the first one sometime around 1991 or so.  In 1996 I switched my own campaign to the Black Company world and made my own homebrew rules for it.  I even wrote Glen Cook once and told him he ought to pursue licensing his books as a roleplaying setting.  He explained that some company already owned the rights and that nothing had ever been done with them, and probably never would be given the state of roleplaying at the time (this was before the 3.0 revolution).Needless to say when I heard that somebody was FINALLY going to publish a Black Company settings, I had mixed feelings about it.  On the one hand, I knew that the Black Company would was probably one of the best opportunities for a liscenced D20 setting in fantasy literature and had the potential for greatness.  On the other hand, it also had the potential to be a huge disaster that forever ruined the license.  I knew that even though The Black Company is adored by legions of fans it would only get this one chance to be done right.One thing caused me to have some hope that it might turn out for the best was the fact that Green Ronin was the company producing it.  I owned some of GR's other work and by and large was impressed with the quality of their material.  Clutching to that slender thread of hope I began lurking on the GR forums trying to find out as much information about the book as possible, and participating in speculation on how various things should work.  Eventually, I was more or less invited to be a playtester for the book.  Of course, I jumped at the chance since I was hardly going to wait to see how it turned out.  Once I got the manuscript I was immediately very excited.  It seemed that the designers Robert J Schwalb and Owen K.C. Stephens had really done their homework and were as obsessed with making the product as true a representation of the novels as possible.  In my opinion they succeeded, big time. . . and if you can impress an old-school dyed-in-the-wool fan like myself, you know you've done something special.The Book ItselfThe Black Company Campaign Setting (BCCS) is a massive 318 page hardback with a beautiful piece of cover art by Wayne Reynolds.  The cover depicts a scene from the battle at the Tower of Charm where the Lady flanked by two of her Taken wizard minions summons forth the War Elephants from concealed positions along the Imperial line of battle to launch a counter-offensive on the rebel assault.  On the left is a red bar with some credits information.  At the top left corner is a rendition of Soulcatcher's firebreathing skull emblem that was adopted by the Company as their own sigil.Interior art is B&W very much in keeping with the flavor of the novels.  You can almost imagine these pieces as sketches drawn by the annalists of the Black Company in the margins of their tomes.Text is small print, margins are narrow.  A lot of information is crammed into this book, but the layout manages to remain attractive and relatively easy to read despite the shortage of extra space.The IntroductionThe book starts with a short excerpt from the beginning of the first novel along with a facing page illustration of the scene.  Its a well chosen example from the books that helps convey some of the tone of the series.  Following that is a six page introduction to the setting for people who haven't read the books.  It shows the covers of the books along with a 1 paragraph synopsis of each.  Three pages are spent discussing "What's Different" about the Black Company world.  This serves as a good launching point for the book that explains the grim, gritty feel of the novels, the lack of clear "good" and "evil", the absence of "divine" magic, and the corrupting influence that magic exerts on the powerful.Chapter 1Eighteen pages long, this chapter provides a huge amount of detail about the history of the world.  Readers of the novels know that Glen Cook has a very spartan writing style that leaves much to the imagination and doesn't necessarily answer all the questions the reader might have, since its written from the perspective of people with limited knowledge of the situation, rather than an omniscient viewpoint.  Despite this, those familiar with the books will be very impressed at how much detail has been pulled together for this history.  The origins of the Plain (a gateway between worlds) are discussed as well as their builders and the long and violent history of the wars and crusades that waged back and forth across it for millenia.  All of this information is pulled directly from the novels, but you have to read them very closely in order to catch it.  (As I mentioned, Robert and Owen REALLY did their homework on this project and even a longtime fan like myself learned a lot from things they found in the novels that I had missed.)The history continues with the rise of The Dominator in the North and follows the origins and path of the Black Company as it moves Northwards.  It covers the end of The Lady's reign and the course of the Company South as it sought out its origins following the final battle at the Barrowland against the newly risen Dominator.  All in all its an excellent and detailed background for the world that would give any DM a great deal to work with in crafting their own adventures.Chapter 2This chapter is 21 pages long and again the research done by the writers really shines through.  Pretty much every location ever mentioned in any of the books receives at least a paragraph of information while those places mentioned more than just casually have much more detail.  Both the Northern and Southern continents are covered and a map of both is provided.  Fans of the series know that a map was never made for these books (even Glen Cook doesn't have one) so the authors carefully constructed one by recording all the distances and directions referenced in the books.  I did this myself for my own Black Company homebrew and I have to say that our two maps are remarkably similar (although theirs includes a lot of detail that I missed, despite being very thorough in my research).  So, in this respect they did a great job at a very difficult task.Also included in this chapter are detailed rules for the terrifying Change Storms produced by the tree-god at the center of the Plain of Fear.Finally, the chapter concludes with some discussion of the Black Company world being just one of sixteen interconnected worlds through the shadowgates on the Glittering Plain.  What is known about the other worlds is also discussed in case you want to do some adventuring there.Chapter 3This chapter begins the character creation section.  Since there are no non-human PC races available in the BBCS, they've created some more variety amonst PCs with the concepts of backgrounds.  I count 23 separate backgrounds available with a chart for rolling one randomly if that is what the DM likes.  Each background gives you a choice of two feats for your human bonus feat, and several skills amonst which to allocate your bonus skill points.  In addition, your background determines your favored class, and examples are provided from the novels of characters who had this background.  Finally, each background also grants you a minor trait.  For example, the Smuggler background trait allows you to use your Knowledge (Local) skill in any city you visit, and also grants a +2 competence bonus to Appraise, Bluff, and Sense Motive Checks.Chapter 4This chapter is the meat of the character creation section.  It introduces some new concepts used in the BCCS like action points, talks about how the book interacts with the Epic Level Handbook, and even discusses NPC classes from the DMG and their relative prevalence within the BBCS.From there the chapter goes on to provide full information on each of the 11 primary classes used in the BBCS.  These classes are:Academician - A sage type PC that actually has a lot more use in the BCCS than in standard D&D.Berserker - A modified barbarian class that cleaves closer to the novels (if youll pardon the pun).Fighter - Minor adjustments only with the addition of Action Points and the mass combat system.Jack of All Trades - Exactly what is sounds like.  A class focused around doing a lot of different things, but not particularly specialized at any one thing.Noble - A class that excels at leading and inspiring others as well as having a few nifty qualities of its own.  A great match for the nobles found in the novels.Ranger - An excellent non-spellcasting variant for the BCCS.Scout - A class that combines some stealth and assassination abilities with outdoors know-how.Thief - Your typical urban rogue cutpurse/criminal type.Weapon Master - Similar to a monk except focused on spiritual harmony with and mastery of a single weapon.Wizard - This is the big bad spell slinger of the game.Zealot - A holy warrior driven by righteous zeal.  No magical powers as there is no divine magic, but their unwillingness to compromise their beliefs and determination to smite the infidel can make them fearsome opponents.The chapter concludes with discussing class by class how characters from other worlds would work in the BCCS, including ones from Green Ronin's master class series and all the classes from the PHB.  As you might expect, under the strictest interpretation, all the spellcasting classes take a heavy hit by loosing all spellcasting ability.  However, a more relaxed conversion is discussed in Chapter 11: Black Company Campaigns.Chapter 5This chapter covers the skills available in the BCCS. There's some information about the new ways some existing skills work within the BCCS as well as a list of skills that don't exist at all.Included are two new normal skills, one Command skill relating to the mass combat system, and one Research skill for rooting through moldy old tomes and piecing together bits of ancient legends.Finally, there are several new magic skills for spellcasters that go along with the skill based magic system.  There's the primary spellcasting skill Magic Use, along with some ancilliary skills such as detect magic and ghost sound that serve as complements to the robust spellcasting system.Chapter 6The chapter on feats introduces the concept of Command Feats and Magic Feats (again they tie into the mass combat and magic systems.  In addition, a complete listing of every feat from the Epic Level Handbook that is available in the BCCS is provided.  Finally, some guidance is offered on including feats from other sources, and a list of unused feats from the core rules is provided also.After that you get into eight pages of new feats (or a few changes to existing feats).  Without counting item by item, I'd say there's probably 50 or so presented here.  The feats fit in well with the flavor of the books and allow PCs to do things that the characters in the novels can do from Raven's knife trick to the Taking of Whisper in the Forest of Cloud.  In addition to the rules specific Command and Magic feats, there's a good selection of General feats that could work in any campaign no matter what rules are being used.Chapter 7This chapter covers character details including Allegiance (a replacement for alignment), Ethnicity, and religion.  Information on all known religions in the Black Company world is provided.  There are also rules for starting ages by class, information on converting characters with alignments to the allegiance system, and a huge sidebar on world appropriate nicknames like Anvil, Giggles, Pill and Venom.Chapter 8The equipment chapter.  The BCCS is on a silver standard rather than gold so all prices here are listed in silver pieces as gold is extremely rare and in some cases illegal for commoners to posess.There are big tables provided showing the prices of everything in silver pieces, as well as rules for converting equipemt from other sources to the silver piece standard.In a stroke of genious, they also developed a rarity value for every item.  There is a table that shows by size of city how easy or difficult it is to locate a piece of equipment based on its rarity.  I love this table!There are a few new weapons and armor from the books provided, as well as detailed information on siege engines (to be expected in a book a setting with as much war as this one) as well as a table with detailed rules on all kinds of realistic new poisons - cobra venom, cyanide, posion dart frog, etc.Included is four pages of rules on Masterwork items.  In a very low magical gear setting like the BCCS, masterwork items take on a much larger role.  Item quality ranges over six levels from "Average" through "Exceptional" to "Masterpiece".  Each of the six levels has rules for how its rarity is affected, crafting information, and benefits it can be given.  Looks like about two dozen different masterwork qualities to be added to any item and each one has three levels based on how many times that benefit is applied to the item.  Afterwards a bunch of masterwork items from the books and their properties are listed.For instance, a Black Company Officer's Baton is described and listed as an "Excellent Club" with the Crushing (+2 nonlethal damage on each hit), and the Threatening (+2 bonus to intimidate checks while displaying item) qualities.At the back of the chapter is a discussion of magic items.  Basically there are two types - magic items that are objects with spell effects bound into them and powerful ancient relics from the past.  Only the first type may be created by PCs and some easy to use rules are provided under the Embed Spell feat in Chapter 6.  Additionally, description and stats are provided for all the magic items mentioned in the books.Chapter 9O.K. here's where we get to some of my favorite stuff in the book.  Chapter 9 is all about combat.  There a three scales of combat provided for running a Black Company game.  The first scale, Character combat, is normal D&D combat with a few changes.  In the novels combat is a very brief and deadly affair, and they've moved standard D&D combat towards that with some changes to the way the damage system works.  The massive damage threshhold has been lowered from 50 points to your constitution + character level.  So a 5th level character with a 14 con has a massive damage threshhold of 19.  That means any time you take 19 points of damage in one shot you have to make a fort save (based on how much damage you took) or become disabled (zero HPs) or even dying if you blow it by enough.  So, under this system, even powerful fighters can be taken out of the fight quickly with a lucky shot.Once you're reduced it zero hit points you no longer take hit point damage, but instead take all damage to your constitution score.  Once you take constitution damage there's a chance that you'll develop some kind of infection that could kill you just as dead during the recovery process.In addition to these changes to the hit point system, there's also expanded critical hit rules that can inflict Grevious Injuries.  They're unlikely requiring either a huge flub on a massive damage save, or a natural 20 on a confirmed crit, but they can be nasty.  Greivous Injuries range from nothing, to bruises that slightly impair your abilities, to severed limbs, to complete disembowelment.  Yuk.Of course there are rules for recovering from all this damage.  Its important to note that the only way to heal in this game is by natural means.  HOWEVER, by using magic or the Physician Feat + Heal Skill, you are able to convert lethal damage to non-lethal damage so that characters can heal points per hour of rest, rather than points per day.This chapter also provides some more information on Action Points and how to use them.  There's a decent writeup on Aerial Combat as well including a distance table useful for calculating those three-dimensional ranges.After the Character combat, rules are provided for Company Scale combat (small to middle sized units) and Army Scale combat (huge hosts of troops).  The rules are fairly straightforward and incorporate the actions and presence of the PCs.  While they're not as detailed as what you'll find in a dedicated product such as Cry Havoc or Fields of Blood, they are certainly a very workable system for people who want to stay more focused on the PCs without pretty much breaking out a set of wargaming rules.The chapter concludes with a section on building and maintaining armies, including information on camp followers and disease outbreaks with fourteen or so diseases covered.Chapter 10The chapter is certainly the centerpiece of the book.  What's presented over 41 pages is a fully developed, well balanced, flexible skill based casting system.  Anything done in the books by Golbin, One-Eye, one of the Ten Who Were Taken, or any of the other sundry wizard types can be replicated by this system.At the root of the system, each spell is basically a feat called a "Talent."  Each talent can be used to produce a variety of magical effects.  At their base level the effects are generally the equivalent of a zero through second level spell.  However, the spellcaster then applies augmentations to the effects range, damage, duration, targets/area, or props (spell components) to make it into the spell effect they desire.Spellcasting is done by making a Magic Use skill check against the DC of the effect you wish to create.  The more augmentations you apply to a spell, the higher the DC to cast it is.So, for instance, with the Create Energy [Fire] talent, I can create anything from a ray of heat that damages one target, to a wall of fire effect shaped any way I choose, to a normal D&D fireball spell, to sheets of flame raining from the sky over a 1000 foot radius.  I can cause the spell to do damage of d4s - d12s with no limit (except my casting ability) to the number of dice of damage I can inflict with the spell.An example: the normal effect of the Create Energy [Fire] spell is a 5' radius burst of flame that inflicts 1d4 damage.  It has a base Magic Use casting DC of 15.  For each +5 I add to the casting DC, I can increase the die size by one step (from a d4 to a D6).  In addition, for each +2 I add to the casting DC I can add an additional die of the current size to the damage.So, for an 8d6 effect I would get:Base DC 15Add'l Dice +14  (7 extra dice @ +2 DC per die)Die Size +5  (Increase d4 to d6)Total Casting DC = 34The range, duration, and area/targets augmentations work the same way.  By adding additional spell components to the spell I can reduce the casting DC, or by getting rid of them the casting DC increases.Its a completely new system that takes some getting used to.  They suggest index cards to start out with, but we found that after using it for a bit, it becomes second nature and you're casting modified spells on the fly in no time.The wonderful thing about this system is that its a) Incredibly flexible yet easy to use once you get used to it, b) Scales infinitely - there's no artificial spell level cap or anything - this is important in games where you have 75th level wizards like The Dominator using the same magic system as the PCs c) it does a wonderful job replicating the magic used in the books.  In fact, at the start of each Talent write-up as a little snippet from the book that shows the talent in action.All told there are 47 or so separate talents and each one can generally produce a couple different baseline effects.  In addition, there are rules for blending two effects from different talents together to create a single effect.  Very slick.  Very cool.You could easily import this magic system to any other setting, although it will definitely have the effect of reducing the amount of magical gear in the world because items are so costly to the spellcaster to create.Also included in the magic chapter are rules for True Names, the Rituals of Naming and Taking, a template for Taken, Magical Null Fields, a template for The White Rose and the use of aids to spellcasting including tainted objects like the Silver Spike, or the harvesting of souls from living or dead creatures.Included in the back of the book is an appendix with all the tables you'll need for casting spells.  I've found that by photocopying them onto a double sided piece of paper and laminating it, I've created quite a handy quick reference.Chapter 11This chapter begins the campaign advice section of the book.  It starts by talking about several styles of playing in the BCCS.For the Company style, it provides rules for building and organizing mercenary companies as wel as calculating the company's Company Strength Rating.It suggests a dark fantasy style where ordinary mortals are not well equipped to deal with the ancient horrors they encounter/unearth.  To support this style of play the book provides detailed sanity rules similar to a Call of Cthulhu game.Next is the Glittering Stone style where the book suggests using the Plain of Glittering Stone as the focal point on a game where the characters travel between worlds or realities.  Rules are provided for the planes, as well as some discussion of varying cosmologies that could be used.  Here also is a section on relaxing the conversion of characters from other worlds so that they can still cast spells in the Black Company's world.The final style presented is the Low-Magic Grit style where the PCs avoid playing Wizards, Shamans, Aceademicians, or Zealots, and instead focus on the gutter dwellers by playing low level fighter or thief types.  Under this style they introduce some rules to make combat even MORE deadly than the base rules.  Ouch.  Finally they wrap up the styles section with some discussion of combining the various styles to produce a unique game.Following the styles portion of the chapter is a brief section on rewards that deals with treasure (including a treasure per EL table), a discussion of the value and use of books and journals in the BCCS, and some variant rules for gaining renown which can be traded for action points or applied as a bonus to a skill.From there the chapter gets into discussion of campaigns.  Over the next 10 pages the book presents more than 40 campaign premises that the DM could model his campaign on.  The ideas are organized chronologically by era (Antiquity, The Domination, Early Black Company, Resurrectionists/Birth of the Empire etc.) and are categorized by varying levels of adherence to the history presented in the books (Tight, Loose, or Free).  Each one talks about the history of the period and the types of adventures the PCs might get embroiled in.  This section is absolutely wonderful as it will provide DMs boundless inspiration for running adventures in this world setting.  For the curious, a complete writeup of Kina's stats are provided here as well.  Do NOT mess with her!Finally the chapter concludes with 15 campaign hooks to kick things off.Chapter 12Chapter twelve contains prestige classes relevant to the Black Company universe.  Here you will find the Artificer, Deciver (from the strangler cult), Great General, Nightstalker (another assassin type), Oracle, Spirit Shaman, Siege Engineer, Sword Master (from the Nyueng Bao), Topkick (squad leader) and the Veteran.  The classes appear to be well balanced and useful and certainly relevant to the world.  Some like the Great General will have more or less use depending on the focus of the campaign.  For instance, if you're never playing any mass combats, then obviously the Great General will be of more limited use to you.The chapter concludes with a section on how to incorporate prestige classes from the DMG into the campaign and how they should be modified.Chapter 13This chapter is 39 pages of full stat write-ups and some illustrations of pretty much every major character in the book plus a lot of minor ones.  If there's somebody you read about in the novels whose stats you'd like to know, odds are good they're here.  Chapter 14This is the bestiary.  Its starts by talking about monsters from the monster manual and giving the DM some guidance on what types might be suitable for the game, and how and where to incorporate them.  After that follows 28 pages of new monsters pulled directly from the novels.  From Old Man Tree, to the forvalaka, to Whind Whales.  Its only when you see them all gathered here that you really realize that there are quite a few monsters in the setting after all.  They also thoughtfully provided generic stats for Imperial and Shadowlander soldiers at 1st 3rd and 7th level for the busy DM who needs a gang of faceless NPCs in a hurry.AppendixThere are three appedices provided.  The first is a complete listing of every Brother of the Black Company mentioned in the books and a little bit about the background of each.The second is the handy spellcasting tables reference I mentioned earlier.  Makes a great handout for wizard players.Finally, rules for the game of Tonk are provided for those fascinated by the game the Company always seems to be playing.  It actually is a pretty fun card game.At the end of this section is a two-page (single sided) character sheet for the Black Company campaign that will help you keep track of all the things unique to the setting.  Its also available for download on the Green Ronin website.Finally, a fairly detailed two-page index wraps up the content section of the book.  A couple pages licenses and ads follow.ConclusionI realize I've spent most of this review talking about what's in the book.  What you're probably wondering is, "Is it good" and "Should I get it."Well, it is indeed excellent.  The rules material is very well written and extremely well balanced.  The information on the setting is surprisingly detailed given the source material.  As far as history and setting goes, I'd have to say that this is the equal of many other campaign settings out there.  It really provides you what you need if you wanted to run a campaign in the world of the Black Company.  That said, because Glen Cook has such a spartan writing style, you still have a lot of leeway to make changes to the setting without having to worry about messing up other things as a result.  So really, you get the best of both worlds with this product.  You have a good framework of information about anywhere in the world in case the PCs decide to go there suddenly, but on the other hand you have plenty of room to expand or play with the stuff there according to your own desires.As far as whether you should get it, I'd say there are several types of people who should probably pick up this product.1.  Of course, fans of Glen Cook and the novels should pick this up no question.  Even if you don't plan on playing in the setting, you'll learn an awful lot more about your favorite book series.2.  Anyone interested in running a low-magic gritty game should pick this up.  You can either use the entire setting or cannabalize the book for rules.  Since the rules are tied so much into the grim and gritty flavor, they'll have the effect of transforming any game in which they're used to that style.  The rules are easily portable for those who want to use their own setting instead of the Black Company world.3.  DMs who are interested in a variety of settings can use this as their core.  One of the great things about the Black Company world is that the presence of the Plain of Glittering Stone and the Shadowgates make this a perfect focal point for a world-hopping campaign.  Imagine what happens when The Lady and the Ten Who Were Taken storm out of a shadow gate that connects to Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, or Ebberon.  Those people are in for a world of hurt.Robert and Owen have managed to produce product that stays very faithful to the books, while bringing the world to life in an RPG setting.  I predict you'll see a lot of folks on the net recommending this book whenever somebody asks about, gritty, low magic campaigns or alternative magic systems.</blockquote>

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