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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2008655" data-attributes="member: 172">The Quintessential FighterWith the publication of The Quintessential Fighter, Mongoose Publishing kicks off their fourth product line, the Collector Series (following their Slayer's Guide, Encyclopaedia Arcane, and Traveller's Tales series). As the title should betray, The Quintessential Fighter is a d20 System sourcebook aimed at expanding the role of fighters and other fighting characters. The book physically resembles the "complete" series of supplements published by TSR for 2e AD&D. The "complete" books have had a good degree of disdain leveled at them by 3rd edition D&D players, and perhaps with good reason: the "complete" series of books were done by freelancers, and varied wildly in style, content, and power level; and their publication was often seen as flooding the market with substandard "splatbooks."Given this, one might be confused as to why Mongoose would want potentially to associate their books with this stigma. Perhaps, however, they are going for a specific target audience, the audience that appreciated some or many of the books. Indeed, I thought that despite the fact that many of the complete books were blatant power-ups, many of them were very good. For example, I found that many of the complete books had great background ideas for DMs (especially the Complete Wizard's Handbook) and useful subsystems (like the thief guild system in the Complete Thief's Handbook) that made them worthwhile.So, is Mongoose trying to cast these books in the same light? Well, the best way to judge a book is not by the cover. Let's take a look inside!A First LookThe Quintessential Fighter (TQF) is a 128-page, perfect-bound, softcover book, priced at $19.95 US. As mentioned, the cover resembles the 2e AD&D "complete" series of books, at least at a distance. The cover has a pattern giving it the look of rusty brown leather on the cover, with gold embossed lettering.The interior artwork is black and white, and has many of the same illustrators who appeared in Chaos Magic: Wild Sorcery, such as Anne Stokes, with the addition of Eric Lofgren, whose work you may recognize from FFG's Legends & Lairs hardbound books. The art consists of many pencil drawings and some pen-and-ink illustrations, and it is primarily decorative, except in the case of the weapons chapter, which is well illustrated. Of course, Mongoose has the obligatory bare-breasted woman in the book, but at least some ghastly monstrosity is not groping this one. It's still pretty gratuitous.The typeface and spacing are about average. This combined with the fact that the cost per page is slightly below average delivers a decent value based on presentation and cost alone.A Deeper LookAs with previous Mongoose products, TQF is divided into topical sections instead of distinct chapters, but the sections are a little larger and more solidly grouped here than in many prior books.The first section covers what the author calls character concepts. It presents 11 basic character concepts that you can use to add a little spice to your fighter. It is just not background descriptions and role playing ideas, however. It throws a few mechanics in the mix. Each character concept gets a mechanical bonus and a penalty. Yes, they are the 2e kits resurrected -- after a fashion.In some cases, the nature of the bonuses and penalties are appropriate. For example, the noble gets a surge in his starting funds, in exchange for paying more for everything until 5th level, since a noble "must have the best," which seems like a wash to me. Other concepts, though, seem poorly conceived. For example, a thug gets a sizable bonus to Intimidate (+4) in exchange for a penalty to Diplomacy. I do not consider balanced the trading of a skill you are likely to use for a penalty in a skill you are not likely to use, and I think the magnitude of the bonus is too high for a "freebie." Further, if you wanted a character who could intimidate, that would be the function of buying the skill and taking Skill Focus in Intimidate. I consider the character concepts to be good food for thought, but would take care before using the mechanical aspects.The second rules section is entitled The Prestige Fighter. As you might guess, this is where the almost obligatory prestige classes are. Unlike prestige classes you might find in Sword and Fist, the prestige classes herein are all short (5 levels), and most of them do not have the kind of supernatural abilities that some of the S&F prestige classes do. The prestige classes include:-Berserker: As the name suggests, the berserker is a warrior that enters a berserk rage in combat. I found the class odd on two counts. First, as far as I am concerned, the game already has a berserker: the barbarian. (In fact, AEG's d20 Rokugan book goes so far as to rename the barbarian class as "berserker.") Second, even inasmuch as some of the class abilities might offer a barbarian something the base class does not, a single class barbarian is ineligible for this class as it requires the weapon specialization feat.-Brawler: The brawler is a character who spends somewhat too much time in mix-ups in various festhalls. The abilities of the brawler include a sneak attack like ability, improved damage, and other abilities improving his standing in a game of fisticuffs. The brawler's skill list seemed rather short to me (Climb, Intimidate, Jump, and Swim). It seems to me that the class could use both the Profession skill (nobody's just a brawler) and perhaps Gather Information.-Knight of the Griffin: An order of knights that bear no allegiance to a specific nation, but wander the land seeking to vanquish evil. They gain abilities that protect them against fear and assist in a charge. Their heroic stand ability, however, seems either ill-phrased or ill-intentioned. The character can fight until she dies at -10 hp. Yet as phrased, if she goes below 0 hp, she dies at the end of the combat whether she is reduced to -10 hp or not.-The Legend: This is a character inspired by the like of Siegfried from the Ring of the Niebelung. The legend is a high level (you need +15 BAB to qualify) character that the gods are watching over. The ability of the legend that took me aback at first was the favor of the gods. This ability lets the character ignore the result of a dice roll unless it is a one, and simply choose the result. That sounded pretty nasty to me as a result, until I considered what wizards are doing at level 16+.-Living Blade: This is sort of TQF's version of the weapon master, though living blades specialize only in bladed weapons. The living blade has some neat abilities, but some take up the living blade's lowest attack as a cost. This is a poor method, since the relative cost varies widely as the character's BAB increases. Some warrior will lose a +1 attack, while others must give up a +5 attack.-Master Bowman: A straightforward concept, the master bowman is a highly skilled archer. The master bowman can improve his hit and damage rolls under certain circumstances, and can even threaten targets out to 20 feet with his bow.-Noble Defender: Noble defenders are nobles that act as champions of their people and defenders of the land. They receive bonuses to command others and eventually receive funds for a castle.-Officer of War: The officer of war is a warrior trained to lead others in battle. All of the officer's abilities are targeted at improving the his leadership ability and the morale of those he leads.-Peasant Hero: The peasant hero gains abilities to rally other peasants to her side and to take advantage of her station in combat.-Swashbuckler: Not exactly a new concept in d20, the swashbuckler is a lightly armored, dextrous, witty warrior. Among other abilities relating to their deftness, swashbucklers add their class level to their AC under certain circumstances. I cannot tell you what those circumstances are: an unfortunate layout gaff seems to have snipped the line describing them.Though the classes have a few bad mechanical implementations, they are generally not bad. The non-magical nature of the classes may make them good for low magic or historical campaigns, and their short nature would be more suitable for GMs that run at relatively low character levels.The section entitled Tricks of the Trade includes a number of rules observations and variants for use in the game. An example of the former is the relatively simple observation that you can buy your weapons and armor cheaper if you make them yourself. Examples of the latter include rules for breaking weapons with specialized weapons such as parrying daggers, as well as for called shots, jousting, and duels.The called shot rules allow a character who hits in melee to perform a called shot. If the character scores a threat, the player may declare that she is trying to hit a specific area instead of inflict extra damage. If the second roll hits, a side effect occurs according to the location that the player chooses. These rules favor weapons with large threat ranges over those with high multipliers.New feats are introduced in the Fighter Feats section. Many of the feats are improved versions of existing feats, such as Improved Dodge (provides an AC bonus against all attackers instead of just one). Some of these, such as Lightning Initiative (gives another +4 to initiative), strike me as a bit much. There are also feats such as Improved Armor Use (reduces the armor penalty for one category of armor) and Sure Aim (lets you aim for up to 3 rounds, granting you a +1 bonus per round on your next attack with a missile weapon).The most problematic feat is probably Two-Handed Power Attack, though not for what it does (lets you add 2 times your Strength to damage with two-handed weapons, instead of 1½). The feat supposedly cannot be used in conjunction with the Improved or Lightning Initiative feats. Just how this is supposed to work is uncertain, since round-by-round initiative rolls are not the norm in the d20 System. Do you decide at the beginning of the combat that you will not use your initiative bonus? If so, that seems rather illogical.Tools of the Trade introduces a variety of new weapons, armor, and equipment for warriors. Many of the weapons listed are ones that Sword & Fist has pegged as being equivalent to other weapons. For example, the flamberge is classified as a greatsword by Sword & Fist. In TQF, the flamberge has similar stats to a greatsword, but has a larger threat range and is more expensive. This may bother some GMs. In general, however, the assortment of weapons includes such items as specialized arrows and should fill out the existing list of weapons nicely.Those who might have complained that dragon scale armor as described in the 3e Monster Manual just is not good enough may like TQF's version. It is treated as medium armor but has a +10 armor bonus! This just begs to be abused, but hopefully the GM will not make getting such armor too easy.TQF also provides statistics and rules for blackpowder weapons. This includes a sidebar on how one might go about the research task of discovering blackpowder.Perhaps the most intriguing section of TQF is Fighting Styles. It introduces 15 fighting styles that characters may learn. Each fighting style has 5 ranks, and each rank has a certain benefit. To learn each rank, you must have prerequisite feats, and can only use it in certain conditions (delimited by factors such as armor and weapons used). To learn a rank in the style, you must be instructed in it, and there is a minimum training time (which often costs money), and you cannot learn a higher rank than your wisdom modifier. But there is no other cost.This is somewhat similar to the martial arts styles in 3e Oriental Adventures, which you may recall that I was not too fond of. Yet I think that I like TQF's fighting styles somewhat better. You do not just instantly get the benefits the moment you take the last prerequisite feat: you must join a school and put in the time. Also, I like the idea that it is staged better than the "hot and cold" approach of OA.Fighting style benefits resemble feats and/or class abilities. For example, bloody ground, the third rank benefit for the Fegrin's Pair style (a style using paired blades), is very close to the death blow feat in Sword & Fist in that it allows you to do a coup de grace without a full-round action. The staff fighting style Oakenheart has a stunning jab move similar to the Stunning Fist feat.Though I find Fighting Styles somewhat interesting, I wonder if a whole different mechanic to represent fighting styles (on top of feat chains and prestige classes) was necessary or prudent. Further, since it does not use these resources, it seems as if the players are getting free benefits. Still, if you are put off by that, you may be able to adapt the fighting styles to feat chains or prestige classes if you are enterprising. The ideas for fighting styles may be worth it.The are brief sections describing tournaments and mercenaries. The Tournaments section describes the setup of a basic tournament, which you can use as is or modified to create an interesting event for your players to participate in. The Mercenaries section provides some standardized mercenary characters and rules for would be commanders to hire them.Perhaps the most worthwhile and awaited section of the book is the Open Mass Combat System (OMCS). This system provides a means for groups that want to be able to model mass combats to do so using a system similar to the base d20 System.The OMCS works by creating statistic blocks for groups of creatures and treating them essentially like one creature. Instead of standard hit points, a unit has unit hit points, which is based on the total HD of all members of the unit, and modified according to factors such as having the toughness of the unit. Other statistics are based on the average armament, armor, and feats possessed by the unit. For example, a unit with Weapon Focus gets +1 in the OMCS, too. Weapon damage is treated as if it were in terms of unit hit points, but damage rolls are modified by a number derived from the size of the unit.The system also includes such details as siege engines, archers, cavalry, skirmishes, and (yes) morale. In a rather clever mechanical move, all morale bonuses for any other type of roll count as a bonus for the unit's morale roll. Only two things I saw with OMCS bothered me: the quick and dirty way of handling magic seems like it would make it more powerful in mass combat than individual combat, and the fact that losing a member of a unit does not degrade the damage of a unit. These seem like small problems, and it should be fairly simple to conceive solutions.Finally, TQF covers the creation of strongholds. Simple menus are provided from which you can purchase components of a stronghold, similar to the tables in the old 1e AD&D DMG.ConclusionThe Quintessential Fighter is one of the more "crunchy" books Mongoose has put out to date. There is little in the way of heavy exposition that marks many of their other books. In some ways, it does resemble the 2e AD&D books it appears to imitate physically, providing character options, ideas, weapons, and optional systems. I will leave it to the reader whether this is a good or bad thing.This is one of those gaming books whose utility depends rather strongly on the needs of the audience. If you have been waiting for an abstract mass combat system, OMCS is a fairly decent system that should be similar enough to the base d20 System to step into easily and you should probably not hesitate in buying it. The weapons and prestige classes are appropriate in a campaign concerned with such details, especially low magic or historical games.I cannot say that I was too impressed by the feats and most of the "tricks of the trade" entries, but most of the rest of the book appears fairly useful. I have mixed feelings on the fighting styles. They seem like they would be very neat in play, but I worry about their balance and feel we do not need another mechanic for determing a character's capabilities.-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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