Quintessential Aristocrat
The Quintessential series from Mongoose has been a hit and miss series. They have a lot of writers so book to book the quality changes and style changes. They do try to stay with the same formula of chapters, but covering different classes and races always in the same way does not work. Quintessential Aristocrat is different from the normal books in the series in two ways. First it is a pdf while most of the others are in print, and more importantly it covers an NPC class.
Quintessential Aristocrat looks standard for the series. Even though it s a PDF it has the same cover, the same type of art, and the same layout that is expected in the series. The PDF is ninety nine pages in length. That’s about thirty pages shorter then the Quintessential books in print, but about the same size of the PDF ones. The book has borders so while it is black and white it can still end up eating an ink cartridge when printed. It also has no bookmarks. The table of contents is rather basic and there is no index. So, when it gets read must either memorize where everything is or spend timing finding it because there are no sources in the book like bookmarks to help one find anything fast.
I do not normally talk about editing but since Mongoose has had some big editing problems I think that many people’s first question for any new Mongoose book is about the editing. It is not perfect, but reading through the book there are no big errors that make a section impossible to understand. There are some small things like in the Magistrate Character Concept the character has to be lawful. He can also be good, neutral, or chaotic according to the text. Errors like that might be a little frustrating to the reader but they do not hinder comprehension. There are no big problems in here that will ruin the book, only a few little mistakes but that is par for the course.
The book itself is well done. This was researched and well thought out. The first major thing the author does is explain why someone should play an Aristocrat even though it is an NPC class. He has some good reasons and while it is not the strongest of classes his points are on solid foundation. He also fully admits that while research went into this book, it is not truly based on facts. They have been altered and changed to fit that this is a game, but he does encourage people to do their own research if they want a more realistic feel.
The book then goes into the character concepts. These are a way to focus a character by giving them some role playing tips and a small mechanical bonus and flaw. For the most part the effect in game is small but the concepts really help define characters and help in the role playing. I especially like these for players that can not quite grasp how to role play a particular character.
Following that is a section not seen in Quintessential books but one that is perfect here. It goes through the multi class possibilities of the Aristocrat with each of the core classes from the Players Handbook. Since it is an NPC class this section will help boost the power for the character by combining it with a class that is appropriate. Each class combination has an arch type associated with it that best shows what this type of character might be.
Prestige classes are a staple in the game these days and Quintessential Aristocrat does not fail to deliver. However, the author does something that few do. He allows the prestige class to have as many levels as it needs. Not all ideas fit easily as five or ten level classes, but people stretch them out or shrink them down because somehow prestige classes must have only five or ten levels. In here that is not always the case. And those classes feel find and seem okay for what they do. He provides an aristocrat prestige class for each race. There are other ones in here, but it s the racial ones that I found to be the most needed and easiest to use.
Negotiations are the bread and butter of a diplomat. There are some good rule for using dice to negotiate but they may be a little to complex. I also did not like that the bribery amounts was solely based on the level of the person being bribed. It is a good basis for these types of rules, but I would change and refine them some if I were to use them in my game. There are some great new uses for old skills in here. I think this rates up there with Quintessential Rogue as being the best source for this kind of information. They are mostly knowledge skills but they are well expanded upon making some easily over looked skills become important. The chapter also goes into family icons. It does a great job of showing their importance as well as having a nice list of them and possible meanings they have.
Next, it goes into feats and equipment. There is not a lot truly amazing things here but these sections are solid none the less. The equipment does give good descriptions of some mundane items that can be useful to any one. It s the affiliations section though that things get interesting and complicated. In a game that feature diplomacy and contact these rules will be highly beneficial. But for the more average adventure and kill things game these rules would just bog it down when they became relevant, which would not be that often. The same goes for the section on status and building a manor. All three sections are well done and for the right game this should be just what everyone is looking for. The same goes with the list of titles.
It is not a perfect book, but I am still going to give it a perfect rating. The writing and research that went in here is very good. The bibliography alone is a full page. Martin Thomas, the author did his homework and deserves an A. The lack of bookmarks is annoying, but truthfully this should have been in print. The book does something very difficult, it takes an NPC class and makes it worthy of a PC without rewriting the class.
