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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crothian" data-source="post: 2256997" data-attributes="member: 232">Book of Roguish Luck[imager]http://www.montecook.com/images/BORL_Cover.jpg[/imager]Rogues are always some of the more interesting characters.  They always have struck me as classes that have lots of potential with the skill points and many class abilities.  I say classes since there have been many rogue like character classes that have come out.  From the early days of d20 with Traps and Treachery, Song and Silence, and the Quintessential Rogue to later books like Heroes of High Favor Halfling, Complete Adventurer, and Players Advantage Rogue we have had plenty of books on the subject.  Some have been quite good and others have not, but most of them do expand the topic in new and interesting ways.  So as long as new Rogue books are well written, interesting, and do new things I am more then happy to see them get published.    Book of Roguish Luck is a new book by Malhavoc Press.  Malhavoc Press is the company best known for their Books of Eldritch might and the Diamond Throne setting in Arcana Evolved.  This book is written by Wolfgang Baur who is known for his work on Frostburn and Beyond Countless Doorways among other works.  The ninety eight page PDF has some very good art in it by Michael Komarck and Tyler Walpole.  The book has a great lay out and very good book marks.  The book has a color front and back, the covers, but it is otherwise black and white making it easy to print.      The book starts with three new base classes.  Each is nicely flavored and really fit nicely with the roguish focus of the book.  The most important thing I noticed was that while each has a good place to be used none of them outshines the rogue.  They do things different some even having magical ability.  But they do not replace the rogue or make it an obsolete class.  The first is the bandit and they get some nice woodland abilities, sneak attack a little less then a rogue, ability to cover up their trail, and some abilities that help them act fast and take advantage of acting first.   Next is the Gutter Mage.  This is a class that really likes Use Magic Device.  They get bonuses for using staves and wands eventually as well as their own spell casting abilities.  They can steal spells from casters and even have a chance to cast spells they are not familiar with.  This is my favorite of the classes here.  The last class is the Shadowsworn.  They also cast spells, get a familiar that is actually their shadow, and get some other shadow oriented abilities.  Both the Gutter Mage and Shadowsworn have a unique spell list with a side bar that has spells from Arcana Evolved and Eldritch Might so those products can be used with these classes.      Then there is also a trio of prestige classes.  The Deadheart Gangster is a true city thief that keeps getting a cut of the action.  They have some really good informant abilities and rules that go along with them.  These guys know who to talk to for whatever information they are looking for.  Next is the fortune hunter and it is a rare fifteen level prestige class.  It makes its own luck so to speak and gets some nice abilities along that line.  The last class is the Silvertongue Charmer.  They are a real charisma and role playing dedicated class getting some nice abilities that augment diplomacy, sense motive, and bluff uses.  They also continue to gain magical ability if the character had some otherwise they gain spell casting ability of a bard.      Gangs and Guilds is the next section I really want to discuss.  This is a really good place for ideas on constructing different rogue like organizations.  It has nice sections on how open the guild is or if it a complete secret, membership, dues, ownership, etc.  It has a nice page all on Thieves Cant and I really like these type of language details that are rarely seen in any books.  There are a few sample guilds written up.  I like the section on apprenticing to the guilds and working one way into them that way.      Another great section is on gambling.  Gambling is one of those areas not often seen written about in role playing games especially how to do them with the games mechanics.  And I always felt that was odd since gambling can be a big part of campaigns given how common and widespread gambling is.  There are new games of chance and cards in here; rules for using skills and cheating and trying to get one past the house.  This might be the strongest section in the whole book.      The book introduces a new mechanic: Luck.  Other products have tried to use luck before the most notable is Green Ronin’s Advanced Players Manual that introduced a luck attribute.  This time though luck is given out as a pool of points.  They can be spent to reroll certain dice.  Different classes get different amounts of luck points each level.  The Wizard and Sorcerer gain the least amount with the rogue and Bard getting the most.  Prestige classes also grant luck points and there are some simple guidelines to make assign them to each class.  There are rules for having how the players play in a session help them regain luck points but mostly they are just regained when a character gains a level.  Luck points are not unique to just player characters, monsters and NPCs can have them as well.      Then the book has more of the typical things we expect to see in d20 books.  There are new spells, new equipment, new magical items, and new feats.  There are some great and favorable spells in here for the assassin and bard as well as the other classes.  The feats are nice many of them dealing with the new luck rules presented in the book some of them seem really good and interesting.  The bribery rules are really well done and should be great to use by almost anyone that uses NPCs and cities.  They are easy to use and fit into almost any game.     Lastly the book has conversion rules for using this with Arcana Evolved.  The conversions are pretty easy and using the luck pool, with the classes seems to make sense and work well.  The impressive thing is each spell is also converted making them fit into the game with ease.      The Book of Roguish Luck is a very good class oriented book.  It has some great new options for existing roguish characters as well as plenty of stuff for making new ones.  The gambling and bribery rules I know are going to be used in my game immediately. This is very nicely written book.</blockquote>

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