Simon Collins
Explorer
This is not a playtest review.
Beware! This review contains spoilers.
Uncommon Character is a sourcebook of 36 ready-to-use characters, from Atlas Games.
Uncommon Character is a 128-page mono softcover product costing $21.95. There is a fair amount of wasted space in Uncommon Character - besides the 2 and 1/2 pages of ads at the back, there are blocks of white space at the end of most of the individual characters, several times 2/3 to 3/4 of a page. What seem fairly large top and bottom margins add to this effect, along with a quote in very large font under the illustration at the beginning of each character. All the internal art illustrates the NPCs and are line drawings ranging from average to good. Both the writing style and editing are good.
The book is split into three sections - valorous, versatile, and villainous characters. And the book is not called Uncommon Characters for nothing.
In Valorous Characters, we find Aquel, a 2nd-level Nixie expert (shellsmith)/2nd-level Paladin. We learn about the deity he worships - Limna, Lady of the Waves, a new wondrous item that he owns (the Conch Horn of Goodness) and a new armour type, Shell Mail Armour, as well as stats and information on Anguilla, his Giant Eel mount. Full stats are given, 1/2 page of background given about his role as protector of the Conch-Tar tribe, some brief information on his appearance, a couple of paragraphs about his personality (he fears fire and complains bitterly when out of water), and three adventure seeds are given involving Aquel interacting with the PCs to help protect his Conch-tar tribe against mysterious miners, a sahuagin influx, or an aquatic ogre.
In Versatile Characters, Llorymar is an 8th-level Elf rogue who could act as a good stimulus for adventurers in her search for rare books. The fact that she is also an expert forger provides more possible intrigue. The character has an unappealing appearance and personality - arrogant and argumentative with ink-stained face and cropped hair, yet provides a compelling character for the PCs to interact with.
In Villainous Characters, we meet the halfling Morag Glimwish, a human-hunter with a sadistic love of blades. She is a 1st-level rogue/4th-level fighter/9th-level Halfling Hawkeye. We also get to see the details of the 10-level Halfling Hawkeye prestige class, experts in throwing weapons with a Fighter's BAB and good Ref saves. One particularly cool feature is the mid-air parry (received at 9th level in the PrC), which can be used to knock missiles out of the air with a thrown weapon.
Thirty six of these unusual and interesting characters are provided in Uncommon Character, many having associated rules with them such as new deities, prestige classes, magical items, spells, monsters, feats, and even a new humanoid race, Magas, who have an affinity with wood but are very low in dexterity, being known to the local humans as the Clumsy-Men. Other characters include a Half-Djinni Air Elementalist, a real Jack-of-all-Trades with a single level in nearly all of the core classes, a ghostly aristocrat, a gnoll merchant, an evil intelligent +3 longsword of wounding, and a half-orc/half-ogre suffragette.
The index lists the characters by CR, alphabetically, by race, by class and level, and by alignment, as well as listings of the new rules section by section, all with page references.
High Points
If you find yourself running the same old tired NPCs time and again in your games, then Uncommon Character will be extremely useful. The characters are unusual and interesting, there is plenty of information for running the character (even including some ready-to-run verbatim descriptions when first meeting some of the characters), and the background and adventure seeds just beg to have an adventure created around them. The stats seem pretty solid, as do the new rules.
Low Points
The main issue of contention here is one of wasted space. Starting a new page for a new character makes a lot of sense, and perhaps the extra artwork to fill in the gaps might have raised the price, but the white space adds up to about a dozen pages or more.
Conclusion
Of the NPC compilations I have come across so far, this is the best. There is a wide range of character types from CR 1/2 to CR 20, with a variety of races (of which about 2/3 are of core races) and classes. Stats seem solid enough and the wealth of new rules introduced with the characters brings its usefulness beyond just a compilation of NPCs. The useful index makes things easy to find when in the middle of a game. Of course, if you come up with your own NPCs with ease, and have the time to give your villains and major players decent background histories and motivations, then this product will be limited in its appeal, but if you're wanting to give your NPCs a new lease of life, and are willing to ignore the white space, then Uncommon Character comes highly recommended.
Beware! This review contains spoilers.
Uncommon Character is a sourcebook of 36 ready-to-use characters, from Atlas Games.
Uncommon Character is a 128-page mono softcover product costing $21.95. There is a fair amount of wasted space in Uncommon Character - besides the 2 and 1/2 pages of ads at the back, there are blocks of white space at the end of most of the individual characters, several times 2/3 to 3/4 of a page. What seem fairly large top and bottom margins add to this effect, along with a quote in very large font under the illustration at the beginning of each character. All the internal art illustrates the NPCs and are line drawings ranging from average to good. Both the writing style and editing are good.
The book is split into three sections - valorous, versatile, and villainous characters. And the book is not called Uncommon Characters for nothing.
In Valorous Characters, we find Aquel, a 2nd-level Nixie expert (shellsmith)/2nd-level Paladin. We learn about the deity he worships - Limna, Lady of the Waves, a new wondrous item that he owns (the Conch Horn of Goodness) and a new armour type, Shell Mail Armour, as well as stats and information on Anguilla, his Giant Eel mount. Full stats are given, 1/2 page of background given about his role as protector of the Conch-Tar tribe, some brief information on his appearance, a couple of paragraphs about his personality (he fears fire and complains bitterly when out of water), and three adventure seeds are given involving Aquel interacting with the PCs to help protect his Conch-tar tribe against mysterious miners, a sahuagin influx, or an aquatic ogre.
In Versatile Characters, Llorymar is an 8th-level Elf rogue who could act as a good stimulus for adventurers in her search for rare books. The fact that she is also an expert forger provides more possible intrigue. The character has an unappealing appearance and personality - arrogant and argumentative with ink-stained face and cropped hair, yet provides a compelling character for the PCs to interact with.
In Villainous Characters, we meet the halfling Morag Glimwish, a human-hunter with a sadistic love of blades. She is a 1st-level rogue/4th-level fighter/9th-level Halfling Hawkeye. We also get to see the details of the 10-level Halfling Hawkeye prestige class, experts in throwing weapons with a Fighter's BAB and good Ref saves. One particularly cool feature is the mid-air parry (received at 9th level in the PrC), which can be used to knock missiles out of the air with a thrown weapon.
Thirty six of these unusual and interesting characters are provided in Uncommon Character, many having associated rules with them such as new deities, prestige classes, magical items, spells, monsters, feats, and even a new humanoid race, Magas, who have an affinity with wood but are very low in dexterity, being known to the local humans as the Clumsy-Men. Other characters include a Half-Djinni Air Elementalist, a real Jack-of-all-Trades with a single level in nearly all of the core classes, a ghostly aristocrat, a gnoll merchant, an evil intelligent +3 longsword of wounding, and a half-orc/half-ogre suffragette.
The index lists the characters by CR, alphabetically, by race, by class and level, and by alignment, as well as listings of the new rules section by section, all with page references.
High Points
If you find yourself running the same old tired NPCs time and again in your games, then Uncommon Character will be extremely useful. The characters are unusual and interesting, there is plenty of information for running the character (even including some ready-to-run verbatim descriptions when first meeting some of the characters), and the background and adventure seeds just beg to have an adventure created around them. The stats seem pretty solid, as do the new rules.
Low Points
The main issue of contention here is one of wasted space. Starting a new page for a new character makes a lot of sense, and perhaps the extra artwork to fill in the gaps might have raised the price, but the white space adds up to about a dozen pages or more.
Conclusion
Of the NPC compilations I have come across so far, this is the best. There is a wide range of character types from CR 1/2 to CR 20, with a variety of races (of which about 2/3 are of core races) and classes. Stats seem solid enough and the wealth of new rules introduced with the characters brings its usefulness beyond just a compilation of NPCs. The useful index makes things easy to find when in the middle of a game. Of course, if you come up with your own NPCs with ease, and have the time to give your villains and major players decent background histories and motivations, then this product will be limited in its appeal, but if you're wanting to give your NPCs a new lease of life, and are willing to ignore the white space, then Uncommon Character comes highly recommended.
