The Players Guide to Arcanis is the first hard-bound D20 book produced by Paradigm Concepts to my knowledge. It centers around the company's flagship campaign setting, Arcanis: The World of Shattered Empires. I was lucky enough to aquire this book at Gen-Con Indy prior to its appearance in most stores, and must say that overall I was impressed. The book itself is bound with a sewn binding and appears to be able to tolerate most normal wear and tear. The cover art is very good-looking. The interior artwork is likewise quite beautiful (the full page scene on page 3 leaps to mind) and abundant (though it never overshadows the information). The artwork is not everpresent, but is tastefully placed. Unfortunately, the entire book (aside from the cover of course) is in black and white. While this is not a terrible loss, it still bears mentioning.
This book stays true to its name in that it is indubidoubly a PLAYER'S guide. While it contains a wealth of information, it is very much centered around the player rather than the DM. In fact, it goes so far as to state on the back cover that the Codex Arcanis, the original campaign setting book which was oriented towards Game Masters, is needed in order to make full use of this supplement. However, given the wealth of information contained within the Player's Guide, a player may never need see the Codex Arcanis (though she may wish to) in order to fully enjoy a GM's campaign.
The Player's Guide begins with a breif look at the world of Arcanis and gives an overview of the various nations of the campaign setting. It is important and good that the Guide brings this up early, as campaigns set in the world of Arcanis are as likely to concentrate on political maneuvering as on dungeon delving, though adventurous romps through hostile territory are also quite common. The sections on the nations are very informative and interesting if a little inconsistant. Each nation is explained to the reader from an omniscient perspective and then has a number of 'in-character' comments from NPCs on what it means to be from that nation. The nations themselves are varied and complex, ranging from a Romanesqe empire to an evil theocracy to a technologically advanced arabian-like nation. Each nation has its various aspects laid bare including a number of things that are typically omitted in D20 settings: Militancy, GENDER ROLES, the role of the nobility and the commoners, religion (which is later given its own chapter, as this setting uses a unique and interesting deity system), and important persons. While each nation recieves a good write-up, only some of them have a side-bar containing naming practices. While any of them having such a side-bar is a good thing, it is slightly annoying that a few do not, and it is unclear as to whether this was purposful or simply an editing error.
The next section of the book is on races in the world of Arcanis. Each race, with the possible exceptions of humans and half-orcs, is given a completely new spin from those in the core rules. In addition, several new races including campaign specific versions of planetouched called Dark-Kin and Val are given completely new rule sets. Each race is fully fleshed out, beginning with a cinematic story of an Iconic character belonging to that race. There are nine races in total, plus five separate sub-races of Dwarves and five subraces of Ellori (the Arcanis equivalent of elves). In addition, Val (those who are supposedly descended from celestial servants of the gods) have a wide variety of divine bloodlines to choose powers from. All in all, the Arcanis Players Guide gives players far more racial options than normal.
The section on core classes in Arcanis is very extensive. It explains the differences between the way core rulebook classes normally operate and how they do so in this campaign setting. However, unlike many other campaign settings, the changes are far from minimal, at least in so far as the divine casting classes are concerned. For one thing, the setting ressurects a second edition idea: that of specialist preists. In the Player's Guide to Arcanis, clerics for each diety have specific changes. For example, clerics of Neroth, god of Death and Corporeal undead, may cast any Necromacy spell regardless of alignment restrictions. Furthermore, fourteen completely new core classes have been added to supplement the role of 'Holy Champion' that was usually dominated by Paladin. Each of these classes is deity specific and offers appropriate abilities. Furthermore, a non-combat oriented version of cleric - the Preist - has been introduced and a PC-applicable version of Aristocrat - the Patrician has been included for those who wish to be amongst the nobility. Overall, the changes and additions to the core classes bring a great amount of flavor to the campaign and are very well put together.
The next two sections center on skills and feats. The skills section is run of the mill and introduces a few setting-specific skills as well as new uses for old ones. The feat section is very interesting, however. It introduces a few new types of feats: bloodline feats, background feats, and military feats. The bloodline feats allow planetouched PCs to enhance existing blood-ties to the celestial or infernal, the background feats allow 1st level characters to flesh out character pre-play history and gain appropriate benefits, and military feats - available only to those with background feats to show military training - allow similarly trained individuals pull off coordinated combat moves such as locking shields. Overall the feats are interesting and useful. My only real complaint is that there are possibly too many of them as they count over 150 (as is advertised on the cover).
The next section of the book centers on Prestige Classes. As with core classes, it describes how core-rules PrCs operate in this setting and then adds its own setting-specific core classes. The setting-specific Prestige Classes are quite varied and range from the diplomatic "Val'Mehan Emissary" to the barbaric and fearsome "Warped Ones." With 38 unique (YES, THIRTY EIGHT, not counting a few Monk only PrCs covered in the chapter on Core Classes!) Prestige Classes, variety rules the day. Each prestige class fills a niche in the campaign world and is well thought out given players a wealth of opportunity to customize their individual character.
The next two sections are on equipment and magic. A veritable arsenal of arms and armor- including well covered rules on Flintlock fire arms - are covered. The armor is interesting and introduces a new form of armor - the Exotic armor - which is better than standard armor, but requires a feat in order to use properly. Weapons range from the strange and exotic - the Chain Sword - to the commonplace - the Flamberge. Each weapon is discussed and statted out similarly to the core rulebooks. My only complaint about this section is that the pictures of the new armaments are not labeled, so it is difficult to match the pictures up to the appropriate item. Not a big deal, but one that bears mention. The magic section is standard fare with new domains, new rules for certain core spells, and a multitude of new, interesting spells. Overall a good section.
The final two chapters are on Religion and Secret societies. As mentioned earlier in this review, politics and religion play major roles in the campaign setting of this source book. Thus they are further explained in these two chapters. The religion section first details the two rival church orgainizations in the world and then describes worship of each deity in full including spheres of influence, temples, and the roles of the clergy in society. Overall this is one of the most extensive explanations of religion I have seen in a campaign setting. The chapter on Secret Societies details just that... a number of secret societies to which PCs may belong. Each society has allies and enemies detailed as well as its political agenda. This is a very nice bit of flavor for the world and seemingly is about to burst with adventure hooks.
Up to here, I have described each section of the book as best as I could, and as you have read have been greatly impressed by the content. However, the reason this book does not rate a perfect score is as follows: editing errors. While not nearly as bad as previous products put out by Paradigm Concepts, there are still a goodly number of minor typos in this book. Also, in two (that I noticed) of the prestige classes, the advancement table contradicts the class text. Furthermore, within the massive amount of feats there are a few formatting issues where the titles of certain feats were not made bold that makes it difficult to locate the offending parties.
There is one more issue that should be covered as well: Game Balance. As presented in the Player's Guide to Arcanis, the campaign setting is definately a high-powered campaign. Simply looking at any one component of the book may lead one to believe that it is horribly out of balance. However, if you take into account the changes made to nearly all the core material covered in the book, it becomes apparent that the book is quite balanced, but it moves that balance into the realm of high-powered campaigns. This is neither a good thing or a bad thing as it is firmly in the realm of personal preference, but it needed to be mentioned.
Overall, in spite of the failings of Paradigm Concepts' editing system, this is an exellent source book and Player's Guide. It is three hundred and twenty pages in length, and every bit of that is quality material if you can look past the black and white artwork and the editing issues. The setting is interesting and very well fleshed out, and for the amount of material contained within the book the asking price of $39.99 is really quite reasonable. It takes all the core principles of D&D and expands upon them greatly as well as taking things in a new direction. Therefore, I highly recommend this supplement to any D20 gaming group looking for a change of pace with a new campaign world.
- Jack Cooper
Member of the Clemson University Gaming Guild
