Elves must be one of the most popular fantasy races in the realms of fantasy rpgs, stories and poetry alike. Mongoose Publishing's Collector Series doesn't quite have the same dominance over other rpg supplements as elves have over other races but it must be one of the most popular independent d20 series out there. The Quintessential Elf marks a change for the Quintessential line, it's the first book to cover a race rather than a character class.
Character concepts are one of the core strengths of the collector series. They show that the books are not just a shameless "power up" for your favourite sort of character; that they really do try to enrich and enhance rather than just adding more numbers. I could argue that the more rules you add, the more specialities, quirks and unique features you add then the more room there is for power playing. Although the character concepts could be exploited, picked by twink players purely for the bonuses likely to come into play and the penalties that are unlikely to occur often in the campaign, these features are such an insignificant portion of the Concept compared to its role-playing and adventuring aspects that I think, even then, they'll be beneficial to the game. The same can't be said for prestige classes. Concepts include the Outcast, the Envoy, the Feyborn, Wild Child, The Changeling, Apprentice, Trueblood, Manhunter, Urban Elf, Elf Noble, Chosen, Eccentric and Retired Defender.
There are, of course, prestige classes as well. Whereas the character classes provide a levelless history for your players the prestige classes offer up a host of new levels for ambitious players to aim for. I just wish there was a greater ratio of levels to prestige classes, it seems that an awful lot of them only provide five levels of advancement rather than ten. That's about my only grumble with the twenty-paged chapter. There is always enough information for each prestige class, the special abilities are described in full and each one lets you know what NPCs of the class are likely to be doing. For example, it is suggested that NPC Green Sentinels can be either looking after Elf Nobles or roaming trouble-shooters. The list of prestige classes looks a bit like this; Beastrider (5 levels, elf or half-elf), Windlord (5 levels, elf only), Speaker of the Stars (5 levels, elf only), Voice of the Forest (5 levels, elf only), Master of the Hunt (5 levels, elf or half-elf), Keeper of Songs (5 levels, elf or half-elf), Green Sentinel (10 levels, elf only), Arcane Delver (5 levels, elf, half-elf or even elf-friend), Darksoul (5 levels, drow or half-drow), Primordial Spirit (10 levels, elf or half-elf) and Order of the Silver Heart (10 levels, elf or half-elf).
"Tricks of the Trade", a familiar chapter for Collector Series readers, has become "Tricks of the Elves". It's one of my favourite chapters in the book and it's a favourite because it can be applied to a wider range of characters than just elves. There are rules here for brewing and concocting all sorts of alchemical items such as elven wine or liquid light. There are nice rules for foraging for herbs with enough detail to cover the DC checks for both Search and Wilderness Lore based rolls. There is a list of trick shots that do to feats what the character concepts do to character classes. The trick shots are not feats in themselves they are impressive tricks which require certain feats and then further skill checks in order to achieve the desired effect.
The "Tricks of the Elves" also provides a different approach to training animals as presented in the core rules. These rules attempt to let govern how animals can be trained to react in certain circumstances rather than teaching them tricks and tasks. In addition, elves have the ability to imprint, through ritual, a bond between themselves and young animals.
As is the case with prestige classes you can expect to find new feats in every second d20 book you pick up. At least, though, given the scope of the Quintessential Elf its not unreasonable to find Elven Feats here. There are a couple of pages of new feats. Some of the feats are rather impressive, such as the Bounce Spell feat that allows a caster to extend the range of a spell by channelling it through someone in sight. I don't think the feats are any more over powered than any other feat in the d20 system though, the Bounce Spell feat, for example, means that you'll be using a spell slot two level higher for the bounced spell.
"Tools of the Elves" adds waves of high fantasy to your game. You'll find prices and damages for such things as crystal greatswords, skylances and dance running skirt blades. There are new types of armour; items like the Hunter's Hide which will give the wearer bonuses to his hunting roll. There is extra equipment too, items like flutes and harps but also the descriptions for weird alchemical items mentioned earlier; faerie dust, cold fire and naphtha. There are a few pages of magical items as well.
There is an army of elven subraces. Half-elves, though, are saved for a future book. High Elves, for all considerations, are the core elf race from which the other types are subraces of. To this end they're introduced to the reader and then finished with a guide back to the core rulebook. The other subraces have different racial traits and that's all presented in full. The subraces include the infamous Dark Elves (the Drow) and they appear as a certain popular campaign world has established as ipso facto, there are the regal Grey Elves, the aquatic Sea Elves, the tribal Wild Elves, the reclusive Wood Elves, the mysterious Mist Elves, the winged (yes, wings) Sky Elves and the nomadic Wanderer Elves.
Think of Elves and think of magic; yet it's hard to present that in a traditional fantasy rpg without hugely over powering the race. The solution, as such, in the Quintessential Elf are some new types of magic which are more like extended feats than anything else. The ability to Charm allows the elf to charm objects and animals alike. Charmed items have spells grafted onto them; an arrow with the "sleep" spell for example. The Art of Shaping is that magical talent by which some elves grow their houses, staffs and tools. A nice touch here is the ability to have cooperative shaping and this should give GMs the excuse to include some truly impressive secret Wood Elf forest towns. High magic is a secret and very powerful art that allows the lucky elves to charge magical items, entwine two spells together, cast through their familiar or halt spells. Along with High Magic elves have access to Magic of the Land and this allows them to enchant a whole place and then embed a trigger for the spell. I caveat to my suggestion that the book doesn't simply power up your typical elf certainly is the inclusion of High Magic and the counter claim would be that High Magic isn't something your average elf engages in.
There's an elven pantheon too. Good! Too many books try and get away with the idea that the humans have a whole range of gods and yet the fantasy races only have one each. It's just a quick run through of elven deities though. The Elven Allfather, the Lord of the Deep, Lady of the Wind, Lord of Mysteries, Goddess of Love, Keeper of Time, The Trickster, The Wyld Hunter, The Spider Queen and the Loremaster. Each comes with their domains, alignment and a guide to their dominance; the Allfather is greater deity whereas the Loremaster is a lesser deity. None of these deities are given a name… and I like it. Throughout the book you'll find the elven name for things in brackets, each of the prestige classes has an elven name for example, its easy to say that elves but a great deal of importance into a name so why would they band names for gods and goddesses around willy-nilly? I don't think they would but with the nameless deities in the book any GM can name them as he sees fit without rule-lawyer players piping up, "That's not right!" Along with the elven pantheon there is a list of elven cleric domains: dream, forest, love, music and sea.
The "Secrets of the Elves" serves best as a take it or leave it chapter. I'm tempted to leave the idea of an "Elven Soul" where all the elves are connected through a single great soul. On the other hand, I do like "The Ascended" as a template for Tolkien-like immortal elves. Similar inspiration, perhaps, is responsible for the "Land Beyond the Seas" as an Outer Plane where ancient (but not Ascended) elves can "retire" to. There is a bunch of fighting styles. Fighting styles where first introduced in the Quintessential Fighter but you don't need that book to use them. The styles are basically a chain of mini-feats that are gained through training and having the prerequisites.
The rules for Aerial Combat are ten pages long and try to cover a different aspect of aerial combat from that which the core rules already cover. It's said that the Core Rulebook II presents rules best suited for situations where only one of the combatants are capable of flight. The claim is that these new rules aid the GM deal with two or more aerial combatants – for me, at least – this seems to be true. It's certainly true that compared to ground based melees the time two flying opponents spend in actual contact with one another is minimal and that standard rules for ranged weapons encounter serious problems if combatants are moving in three dimensions and at widely different speeds. Mongoose and Alejandro Mechor, the in-house author, certainly know their game mechanics. There are rules for attack angles, manoeuvrability, relative ranges, distance between melees and even aerial magic. Thankfully these rules pretty much make sense and have firm roots in common sense and easy game play. I don't think they're too much for any GM to get into their head and don't have to be used in full either, just reading through them acts a reminder to some of the differences between a standard fight and flying one.
Tucked away at the back of the book (just before the index, the rule summaries and elf character sheet) there are few pages on elven strongholds. There's just enough rules here to add some spice to elven homes and enough space left in the 128 paged book to note examples of subrace strongholds such as underground drow cities or sea elf reef towns.
I like the Collector Series. The Quintessential do for Class and Race everything that the awful WoTC class books should have done but failed to do. The name "Collector Series" is apt, it's a highly collectable series, Mongoose seem able to maintain a rapid pace of publications and I'm sure the Quintessential line will build into a comprehensive library of DnD source supplements. You can't please all of the people all of the time and so it was perhaps a conscience decision to keep the remit of the Quintessential Elf firmly in the High Fantasy remit. High Fantasy is the most popular. If, though, you don't have a campaign world which lends itself so well to winged elves, exotic riding creatures, high magic or a wealth of magical items then there's less in the Quintessential Elf for you. I liked the book. It's well written, well presented and I like the Mongoose style of art. If you're desperately trying to get your players to try a different sort of elf than a lithe, blonde archer who's recently taken to stabbing orcs in the eye with his arrows while helping a group of humans, halflings and a token dwarf character on their quest then you would be very well advised to make this purchase.
This
GameWyrd review can be found
here.
