Unearthed Adventurers: Volume I

[Messageboard Golem]

Cultist
This class is designed as a divine sorcerer, with spontaneous divine spellcasting ability and limited armour and weapons. They make up for this by gaining a number of special class 'virtue' powers and a specialisation in their domains.

Swordsman
The swordsman represents the fighters who have developed combat into an art-form. They specialise in fighting techniques rather than gaining bonus feats. This provides them with great ability, but that is confined by the shackles of predictability and a lack of flexibility in the field.

 

[Krug]

Core Class books are a mixed bag. While I don't find the classes sufficient, there's been little out there I'm willing to add to any campaign, or feel strongly about to petition to my DM to add.

Malladin's Gate has boldly put out not one, but two new core classes in their first supplement in the Unearthed Adventurers line; a 91-page PDF broken up into two parts each featuring one of the core classes.

The Cultist is a divine spellcaster who draws power from a planar creature. They can cast their spells spontaneously, and have D4 HD and low BAB advancement. They gain special powers called 'virtues' as they advance, and can choose up to three domains for their spells.

The other core class is the Swordsman, a "different sort of fighter". They have d8 HD and mid-level BAB advancement, gain 4 skill points per level and gain a series of fighting techniques that give them an edge in combat. The name 'swordsman' is quite a misnomer, as some of the fighting techniques revolve around weapons such as the polearm, the warhammer or even unarmed fighting techniques.

Besides a chapter devoted to detailing the class, there are chapters for skill and feats, powers, prestige classes and a GM section. MG has certainly done a lot of work for the new classes they're introducing. These are not like Mongoose Publishings Power Classes; the detail is extensive and well thought-out. Besides the hard crunch, there's the cream, such as divine beings for the cultist to worship.

The cultist fills in a necessary gap; the divine spellcaster who's more devoted to spells than fighting. It's a good implementation, though the learning curve for implementing them is trickier. Included in the cultist section are a bunch of new domains and handful of new spells. The Prestige Classes focus mainly on multiclassing the Cultist with other core classes, an approach similar to that taken by the Badaxe Heroes of High Favor series. This approach creates some odd mixes, and those here aren't particularly inspiring. The GM section introduces several creatures that cultists can worship for their powers.

The Swordsman, however, has less of a persuasive case. With their bonus feats, the Fighter is the most flexible core class in the d20 rules. The Fighting Techniques, which the Swordsmen need to use skill ranks for, are more akin to feat chains, and might have worked better if done that way. Nevertheless, even if a GM has qualms about using the Swordsman, there are many useful rules herein. DCs are provided for a bunch of useful, showy fighting tasks. The Prestige Classes are more interesting here, and the GMs section includes more extensive rules for gunpowder weapons.

There are some minor formatting errors. For example, the virtue of liberty continues midway through the second column and the font size changes suddenly between certain pages. There's more art than in their first release, the excellent Forgotten Heroes: Paladin, but nothing that'll win an award for.

Overall, the two core classes here are fairly interesting. I've shown this to fellow players at the FLGS and they're interested in the Cultist; the Swordsman is more of a hard sell as it appears to be more of a variant of the fighter. However, there's certainly a lot here for those looking for new core classes to spice up the campaign. The level of detail is astounding, and Malladin's Gate continues to maintain the high level of their products.

My advice to MG is to take the next leap and spend more on illustrations and artwork to convey the particular flavor of their products. The downside of the minimalistic approach is that it's hard to get people excited by them, and the sheer amount of text the player has to digest was a bit of a turn off. The cover is also a bit of a confused mess. Also, if they had the opportunity, please change the Swordsman core class to a name that is more suitable. It's odd to find that a character skilled in the bow or hammer is actually a 'swordsman'.

 

[malladin]

Thanks for the review, Krug.

Just a quick note on the swordsman. The class was originally designed for a Renaissance Fantasy generic sourcebook that we were planning to write before AEG went and did swashbuckling adventures. Hence the swordsman name. It was only when we came to writing UA that we realised the potential of the class to 'do' Archers and Martial Artists as well. The swordsman name stuck simply because we couldn't think of anything different. So, suggestions on a postcard .

We intend to take your advice on the art stakes. We'll probably not get enough to make Forgotten Heroes: Sorcerer much more interesting than UA, but wht follows should hopefully be of a better standard .

Thanks again,

Ben, Malladin's Gate

 

[trancejeremy]

Eh, it's like Musketeer. Despite their name, they're famous for sword fighting.

Still, "Armsman" would have been the obvious name, I'd think.

 

[GameWyrd]

Ninety-one pages for two core character classes. That’s something. Let’s be clear; there are only two main core classes in Unearthed Adventurers: Volume 1 and not the three the supplement sometimes says there is. You’ll get the cultist and the swordsman, you’ll loose out on the divine knight. A whole class missing: that’s either a series of unfortunate typos or a serious omission and severe kick in the teeth for the $7.50 supplement. Fortunately, it’s the former, Unearthed Adventurers is sold on the grounds that it offers up two new core classes and so no one will buy it expecting to find the divine knight inside.

The Cultist steps forward as an ideal candidate for that most obvious hole in the 3.0 character rules; the specialised divine spell caster. The Cultist does not share the traces of combat ooph that are present in both Cleric and Druid; the Cultist focuses more on spells. The Cultist doesn’t worship a deity. All of a sudden Malladin’s Gate has rather succinctly offered an explanation as to what is a cult and what is a religion in a fantasy world setting. The Cultist worships a powerful planar creature, a demon, an elemental lord or dragon, for example. The Cultist doesn’t have to be evil either, worshipping an elemental could easily lead to a true neutral path and following the dictates of a lawful good aligned dragon would probably lead to lawful good cultists.

For spells the Cultist has access to three domains provided by their powerful master and these three domains must be prioritised. The class will have a primary domain, a secondary domain and a tertiary domain. Spells from the primary domain are available at first, then as the Cultist levels up she’ll gain access to spells in the other two domains. A 20th level Cultist is still only able to cast 5th level spells from their tertiary domain and would have access to high level spells from their secondary domain after being able to cast high level spells from their primary domain. I like this too, it does seem to be very much like cults. You join the cult and if you serve well might be promoted into higher circles, told about deeper secrets and taught more exclusive spells.

The Cultist class special abilities really do define the character. Every four levels (which is quite a long way to go without between feature) starting from the first the Cultist is able to practise a new virtue. Virtue is a slightly misleading word, it implies something wholesome and good, but in this case the virtue could easily be a vice. The virtue is something that the cult practises and something that the planar being embodies or approves of. The cultist is rewarded for following these tenants with powers and this makes quite a good system for the class special. As the cultist levels up he picks a new virtue and so cultists can be quite different from one another. A cultist following the "Courage" virtue will be rewarded with an immunity to fear, even magically created fear, and will be proficient with all martial weapons and heavy armour. A cultist following the "Study" virtue can’t be chaotic, will be as proficient with weapons as a wizard is, wont be given any armour training but will have some arcane spells as a power. In addition the Virtues have explicit tenants that must be followed.

All these virtues do take up a bit of space in the PDF download but not nearly enough to explain how two classes take up ninety or so pages. In fact, there’s so much written on the Cultist and the Swordsman that each is presented in their own book within the supplement. The Cultist class, all his virtues and a nice but short discussion on playing the character are only the first chapter in the Cultist book. Skills and feats come next. Unearthed Adventurers introduces wholly new feats and reprints some from OGL sources too. I think this sort of thing is a good idea; it’s the best of both words.

There was no real surprise to find a whole host of new domains and spells in a chapter of their own. There’s a wealth of them: 20 new domains in fact and too many spells to count.

I can only think of one other company that’s explored crafting prestige classes out of multiclassed characters. Malladin’s Gate takes their newly created Cultist and sees how it might multiclass with all the core classes and then takes that extra step and turns it into a prestige class. The Cultist-Barbarian based prestige class is the Shaman, they manage to come up with the Warrior Priest for the tricky Cultist-Cleric mutliclass and the Reaper for the Cultist-Rogue, to name just a few. There’s also room for a few straight up Cultist prestige classes. There’s more than just crunch here – and the PDF is advertised as value for money crunch – the highlight of these multiclassed prestige classes is the look at class common ground and contradictions for each. These discussions are frequently useful and always intelligent. The only downside is that the layout gets a little confusing at times, the progression tables for the prestige classes appear either at the top or the bottom of each page and sometimes appear before the PrC is introduced at all.

We’re not finished with the Cultist yet though, oh no, there’s one more chapter to go. The GM’s Information chapter is primary made up of sample powers for the cults to worship: things that aren’t deities but godlike nonetheless. Sure, we’ll find dragons and demons in here, you’ll even catch St John of Academy Handbook: St. John's College of Abjuration fame. What really caught my attention was the inclusion of wolf spirits.

And so on to the Swordsman... and yes, now we can see why the supplement manages to spend over forty pages for each class.

The Swordsman’s shtick isn’t the sword. In fact, the Swordsman doesn’t have to be male or even use a sword. A female pistol dueller will do. The class tries to differentiate itself from the Fighter class through the styles of fighting. The author argues that Fighters tend to be self-taught soldiers, people who learnt to fight the hard way, nitty-gritty no nonsense melee masters. Swordsmen are artists. Swordsmen would be the nobles taught to fence since childhood, or, or, um, struggling here, or the renaissance pistol dueller, the martial artist or perhaps the captain of the expert mercenary company.

The Swordsman class is all about style. The class’s special feature is rather boring but undeniably effective. The Swordsman gains large bonuses to their primary weapon (+2 at level 1 and up to +6 up to level 20). Their primary weapon is defined by their fighting style, their technique. Since this is all about being taught the art of fighting rather than learning it through the school of hard knocks it makes sense that the techniques are bound up with a new knowledge like skill set. A Swordsman with Fighting Technique: Bassal 12 knows more about the Bassal combat style than a Swordsman with the skill Fighting Technique: Bassal 9. This doesn’t mean that the first Swordsman has a higher BAB though. It does, however, mean that the first Swordsman can access the Power Attack feat for free and that’s one more free feat than the second Swordsman has learnt. As the Fighting Technique skill increases, as the Swordsman masters the style, a whole range of free feats become available to them. The character doesn’t buy the feat; he can simply use it providing he is fighting with the appropriate weapon for the technique and in the right stance. There are more than enough of these fighting techniques to keep most people happy. They appear en mass in chapter three of the Swordsman book.

As the Cultist was multiclassed against the 3.0 core classes and then stepped forward into prestige classes so is the Swordsman. In a way the Swordsman makes a tricky mutliclass topic because the of the training and discipline inherent in the class. The Swordsman-Druid multiclass is known as The Way Of Proteus and it makes heavy use of the Druid’s wildshape ability to see the character master animalistic fighting styles. The Swordsman-Fighter multiclass is the Weaponmaster, the Swordsman-Ranger is the Master of the Hunt and the Swordsman-Wizard is the Bladecaster. In addition to all this there’s a couple of straight Swordsman prestige classes too.

I’ve made mention to pistol duelling twice and that’s because the Swordsman book in Unearthed Adventurers contains rules for black powder rules. That’s handy; the class really does conjure up images of the Renaissance Europe. The black powder rules are found in this book’s GM information chapter.

There’s no doubt that the two core class creations are hugely supported. If you’re using either class in your game then you won’t run short of material. The Cultist will be the easier of the two to integrate into most games since there is nothing quite like it in 3.0 rules. The Swordsman will be a tougher squeeze because conceptually it’s similar to the Fighter; a class dedicated to fighting. The game mechanics of the Swordsman class means it plays very differently from the Fighter though. Both classes are rather light on special abilities, earning a new class special every four or so levels and really only ever improving on what they already had. On the other hand, both classes pick critical features from a pool of abilities (virtues for the Cultist, fighting techniques for Swordsman) and so its easy to create a wide range of characters.

Unearthed Adventurers is crunchy. It’s very crunchy. It’s very light on the illustration but since it has some pictures at all it is different from previous Malladin’s Gate Press products. Since there are so few illustrations and light grey sidebars the PDF isn’t too much of a hassle to print. The PDF is without bookmarks and I’ll always whine about that.

Unearthed Adventurers certainly succeeds. It sets out to give you two new core classes and it does, they’re worthwhile, complete and balanced. The supplement then goes beyond the call of duty by producing the multiclass inspired prestige classes. The product could do with a bit of spit and polish but on the whole is a good, strong and useful buy.

* This Unearthed Adventurers: Volume I review was first published at GameWyrd.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Glenn Dean, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack

Sizing up the Target
Unearthed Adventurers, Volume I is a 90-page PDF from the team at Malladin’s Gate Press: Ben Redmond, Nigel McClelland, and Matthew Sims. A sourcebook introducing two new core classes and a host of new game mechanics, this product is available as a $7.50 download.

First Blood
Unearthed Adventurers I is the first in a line of Malladin’s Gate Products that introduces new core classes. Don’t go looking for much art in this product – this is 91 pages of hard-core, no-holds-barred game mechanics. UA I boasts 2 new core classes, 28 prestige classes, 22 new feats (plus 30 previous OGC feats), 2 new skills, 20 combat styles, 20 new domains, 10 new spells (plus 5 previous OGC spells), 10 deity options, plus new weapons and a treatment of black powder firearms.

Right off the bat I found myself a little confused. The introduction says there are three new classes in Unearthed Adventurers, when in fact there are only two – the cultist and the swordsman. The divine knight must have been cut for space reasons – there just isn’t any more room in this page count for another class given the detailed treatment here.

The two new classes are given and extremely thorough treatment for five chapters each. The first chapter in each class “book” gives the basic treatment of the character class. A chapter that introduces new skills and feats related to the class follows, as well as another chapter dealing with special granted powers. The fourth chapter details prestige classes – both prestige classes designed specifically for the core class, and prestige classes designed for the eleven possible multi-class combinations with the standard core classes. The final chapter in each class book provides some GM specific information that will be useful in including each of the classes in a campaign.

The first new class, the cultist, is an interesting new take on a divine caster. The cultist serves some planar creature or power, and casts divine spell spontaneously as does a sorcerer. One the surface, the cultist appears to be quite weak, with only a d4 hit die, and very slow access to spells (even more so than the sorcerer). However, the real power of the cultist comes from the use of domains and virtues. The cultist has access to three domains appropriate to the power she serves, though domain spell access is staggered somewhat. Real flexibility comes from the cultist’s virtues, which help define not only the cultist’s outlook but also her abilities. Virtues have certain tenets that the cultist must follow, but in return grant certain abilities, many of which are reminiscent of core class abilities. One could create a cultist who values strength and power, for example, who has skill with melee weapons and armor, while another cultist might be a stealthy trickster with some arcane spell ability and the ability to sneak attack. The virtue mechanics provides tremendous flexibility in building interesting characters and organizations.

Along with the cultist come a host of new feats, domains, and spells. Most of the feats are skill or virtue related; the spells cover a wide range of uses. Most balance quite readily with existing mechanics – I only found the Ageing spell to be somewhat odd, as age effects have been generally eliminated from 3E. The prestige classes also provide a wide variety of options for either the specialist cultist or a multi-class. Frankly, the cultist has no reason not to take a prestige class once she has a few virtues under her belt – spellcasting prestige classes sacrifice virtually nothing for some rather nice gains. I particularly enjoyed the Holy Avenger and Reaper prestige classes, which are ranger-cultist and rogue-cultist prestige classes respectively. The GM section details a number of outsiders, dragons, elementals, and other planar powers that a cultist might serve in the campaign.

The second new class is the swordsman. The class is poorly named, as the swordsman is a highly trained specialist combatant who might study a range of fighting styles, not just swordplay – perhaps “Soldier” or “Armsman” is a better choice, though no one label would particularly do the swordsman justice, as he’s more of a fighting Renaissance man. On first glance the swordsman appears to be a poor second to the standard fighter – a few more skill points, a different primary save, but a d8 hit die, slower BAB progression, and no bonus feats.

That assessment would be wrong. The swordsman is in fact quite a powerful class within his specialty. The swordsman has access to a “Fighting Techniques” skill, which when the swordsman is set in his fighting stance with the appropriate weapon, gives him access to a number of virtual feats depending upon his skill level in that fighting technique. The fighting technique also grants the swordsman access to special attack and defense moves that are performed as skill checks (DC range of 20-40). The swordsman receives an attack bonus with his primary weapon as well, so with that weapon, in his stance, he has the same attack bonus, and a similar number of combat feats, as a fighter of the same level.

The skill-for-feat mechanic is a very unusual one. While it allows for a very specialized character, I’m not convinced that it is preferable to the strict use of feats – more on that later. The swordsman feat chapter includes an incredibly wide range of combat feats that can be used as general feats, or are designed for use with fighting styles. A couple of the general feats are slightly worrisome (like those that allow ranged weapon use immune from attacks of opportunity, or add the character’s Dexterity modifier to ranged weapon damage), but most are reasonable. The stance specific feats, on the other hand, can turn the swordsman into quite the damage machine, providing additional damage bonuses to the primary weapon that stack with feats like weapon specialization (to which certain fighting techniques provide access).

The Powers chapter describes the swordsman’s 20 fighting techniques. Unearthed Adventurers provides a range of combat styles to fit virtually any type of fighter – mounted combat, ranged combat, the two-weapon or double-weapon fighter, the mobility fighter, a variety of unarmed and oriental combat styles, and so on. Each technique has certain weapon and armor requirements, and the virtual feats are granted in a specific progression. Each technique provides a total of nine virtual feats based on skill rank. A swordsman can get three feats by second level by maxing out his specific fighting technique skill; thereafter the rate of virtual feat acquisition slows to every third level. Each fighting technique has five special maneuvers, most of which are quite exciting, theatric fighting moves, though the one that allows a 10’ move to be treated as a 5’ step gives me chills.

Prestige classes again run the gamut, incorporating fighting stance and technique requirements appropriate to the swordsman. A few have balance issues, but after the dramatic changes the cultist and swordsman provide I was rather underwhelmed by the swordsman prestige classes. The gunpowder weapon rules provided in the GM section, however, provide some nice flavor. Though I take issue with the short reload times presented (a move-equivalent for a pistol; full round action for a musket), the armor penetration rules and misfire procedures seem spot-on. I also particularly like the bayoneting and butt-stroking tactics for use by musketeers.

Critical Hits
Malladin’s Gate Press has succeeded in providing what many games have been looking for since the release of the d20 rules set – extremely flexible, configurable character classes. As different as core characters can be with their combinations of feats and skills, cultists and swordsmen have significantly more varied and interesting options. The virtue and skill-for-feat mechanics show potential to be adaptable for a classless system, which many gamers will find very exciting. GMs will appreciate the possibilities for interesting NPCs and organizations that these classes will provide.

The character coverage shows remarkable depth as well, with over 40 pages dedicated to each class, all of which are chock-full of crunchy game mechanics. If you like new mechanics, and want a thorough set of options for your character classes, you’ll love this product.

Critical Misses
As original as the ideas behind the cultist and swordsman are, and despite the incredible number of flavors these characters could come in, the classes still come across a bit dry. Perhaps it is the limited interior art, or the high density of mechanics, but I felt this product lacked some of the character that Malladin’s Gate provided in their Academy Handbook, with its unique setting that provided a backdrop for the game mechanics. I’d like to see them expand the GM’s section a bit in future Unearthed Adventurer products, and perhaps provide a couple of sample NPCs, or a cult organization, to demonstrate what sort of exciting things can be done with their ideas. There are a couple of editing gaffes, too, on the order of that mentioned earlier in the review – one of the virtues pages is somewhat scrambled, although the information is all present.

The major fault I find with Unearthed Adventurers, however, lies in the area of game balance. The cultist has some potentially unhealthy synergies, but these are by and large balanced by drawbacks built into the virtues. The swordsman, however, needs some drastic rebalancing. The skill-based special maneuvers for each fighting style are fine, but the feat-acquisition by skill point mechanic is not. These virtual feats bypass all other prerequisites except the skill point requirement. Swordsmen are not restricted to a single fighting technique, which means that one character can potentially be as good as a sword-specialized fighter while using a sword, and by switching to a bow, equally as good as the specialized archer. The swordsman gains access to these virtual feats at a faster rate than the fighter until 8th level, with his only major drawbacks being the lower hit die and stance restrictions (primary weapon, move-equivalent to enter stance, etc).

Consider, for example, a second level swordsman of average intelligence, who chooses to max out his skill ranks in three fighting techniques: Cuthalion, Rentagne, and Vinici. This character could use his longbow (gaining the virtual feats Point Blank Shot, Weapon Focus: Longbow, and Precise Shot), switch to the rapier (gaining Weapon Finesse: Rapier, Dodge, and Improved Disarm), and finally draw a Main Gauche in the off-hand (then accessing Weapon Finesse: Rapier, Two-Weapon Fighting, and Off-Hand Parry). The character is the equivalent of a specialized archer, mobility fighter, and two-weapon fighter at the expense of 2 hit points, a requirement to be in no armor, some mobility requirements, and the time it takes to switch stances. I would recommend that a GM consider restricting the number of fighting techniques a character takes, or make in-game training of them a challenging requirement, if this mechanic is to be used in the game.

Coup de Grace
Questionably balanced mechanics mar what is otherwise a very original and highly detailed work, that Malladin’s Gate has had the good grace to provide at 100% Open Content. Players will find the tremendous number of new and varied game mechanics a great value, while GMs can find some clever ways to further customize their game with very versatile characters, provided they keep an eye on their game balance. If you are a fan of crunchy game mechanics, even discounting those that this reviewer finds dubious, you will find that this product has one of the highest mechanic-to-dollar ratios on the market.

To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[cthulu_moose]

First, let me state my existing Biases. Once upon a time I knew Ben Redmond, the writer/designer for Malladin's Gate Press. He played in one of my games. But that was 6 years ago now, and we've not kept in touch since. I recently heard about his endeavours into game design so I looked into it. Ben sent a free copy of his producs a while back to the RPG club he used to belong to, which I still do (and write reviews for its news letter), a while which I had a look at and thought nothing of it, being a non-D20 gamer at the time. Since then I havebeen introduced to then new D&D and have decided, to my surprise, that it's not actually a bad game. Therefore I have started to develop my own setting and started to dig around for support products. That's when I went back and borrowed the Club's CD with Ben's products burned on it. I liked what I saw, particularly this product, and have been inducted into the PDF world ever since. As I was already an amateur review writer, I decided to spread my wings a little and begin to develop an onlinepresence as a reviewer. Having lurked on the E-Publishing list for a while now, I thought I'd specialise in PDF products.

Anyway, enough about me, on to the product.

Unearthed Adventurers has to be my favourite of Malladin's Gate's books. I like fantasy that has a bit of a Renaissance feel. Not completely alternative history type stuff, like 7th Sea, but just a little flavour of light weapons and swashbuckling, etc. As such I can't get over the brilliance of the Swordman class. The swordsman is the second complete base (20 level) class presented in this book. The book also includes the Cultist, a no-armour divine spellcaster (more details below).

Each of the classes in this book is described in great detail, with 3 prestige classes specific to the class and another 11 to help with multiclassing it with the 11 D&D base classes. This section is also supported with a really good indepth discussion on multiclassing the classes presented. Not only that, but each class gets a decent treatment on new powers and a good GM discussion on how to integrate them into your game. The detail is great and the discussion is intelligent. You get a real idea of the direction in which they are going with these classes and why they feel they are needed. You also get a whole host of supporting material to help bring these classes into your game anduse them to the fullest.

Let's have a look at the Cultist. Essentially the cultist is a sorcerer who casts Divine spells. However, the really great thing about this class is the way in which they build up their spell list. Like the cleric, they have domain spells, but these are just extra spells known. They develop three different domains as they develop their character. In addition, they can choose from the Cleric of Druid base list. Even on this score alone you can begin to see concept behind this class: this is designed to replace the existing clerics and druids, and also the shamans, witches and other bolt-on divine casters around. I really like that one-class-fits-all approach. I can't seem to get anyone in my group to play a druid, and clerics always end up multiclassing with Figthers (although I has one interesting cross with a Bard). This approach is further defined by the main class feature they develop; virtues. The Cultist gets a virtue every 5 levels, which provides them with a package of abilities to help define their own class. These include skill packages, better hit dice or base attack, sneak attack (helps with that ritual sacrifice), more spells or turn undead. This is also great for the GM, you can build up your own specialist priest classes for a campaign by giving them different virtues and domains, thus adding a much greater differentiation between the classes than the standard cleric class allows for. This approach is also supported in the Prestige Classes. The Druid and Cleric options, instead of discussing how to multiclass the cultist with these classes, instead discusses how to make the cultist into a more typical cleric or druid.

The cultist is also well suported with some great new domains and spells. Some highlights include some really nasty evil ones, such as Seduction and Malice. Others really bring out the flavour of some minor aspects that deities might have; Music, Science and Love are all fairly classic ideas that you might want to use for deities in your world, and here you get the domains put together for you. The skills feats chapter is also great for the cultist. This chapter basically introduces a new skill; Commune, which the cultist uses to read omens and even pray to their patron power for divine guidance. A good numberof the feats here are used to manipulate the Commune skill, aworking on powerful synergy effects with other skills, but only if you have the feat requirements. Again, the flavour of these feats is great, particularly in bringing out the potential darker side of the class. There's a torturer feat, which is a simple +2 to 2 skills feat (intimidate and knowledge (Anatomy)), but the Unholy Torturer feat boosts this up to +6 to intimidate, as the Cultists uses all their divine power and knowledge to really break their victim. I'm definately going to have a villain with this feat!!

The swordsman, as I have said is a brilliant class. People who have played the original 7th Sea (not the D20 version) will recognise the name, and I'm sure that this was the inspiration for the class. The swordsman is a classically trained warrior. Unlike the school of hard knocks type of warrior the Fighter class represents, the Swordsman is a more refined individual. I can see that the name is perhaps a bit wierd, when you consider that the cultist can also be a martial artist, cavelier, samurai or archer. Again I can see that here Malladin's Gate are trying to tidy up the existing throng of additional base classes. This class can replace all the Knight, Martial Artist, Samurai, Archer and any other specialist fighter class you can think of. The class is slightly weaker than a typical fighter, but they can learn fighting techniques which allow them to specilise in a given area. Whilst this may make them more powerful than a fighter, there are other systems that enable their opponents to find the weaknesses in their more ritualised style.

I've ready other reviews of this book, and also those on the DarkLore setting, which also uses this same mechanic, and there has definately been a mixed reaction to these Fighting Techniques. Each technique is a skill, which allows the character to develop feats perform special manouevres, provided they stick to special restrictions of movement and armour use. Thus as their skill ranks improve with levels, the character gains new feats. For any individual technique, these are at a slower rate than the fighter, but the character can have multiple fighting technique skills. I can see that this is a problem, but the slightly different rules in the DarkLore rules fix this nicely. In DarkLore, each fighting technique has one less feat on the track which instead becomes a requirement feat. Thus a sowrdsman can only have 2 techniques at first level (if they are human) and gain another every 3 levels when they get their usual feats. Multiclasing with the fighter class might let you develop more, but you've got a lot less skill points and an additional cost to cope with on the fighter levels. Overall, particularly with this tweak I think they are balanced. Another argument I've read is that they are just another way of doing something for which we have existing systems in place. Well, personally I don't fall into the "if it's not brok don't fix it" lobby. If someone can come up with a better way of doing something than an existing method, I'm all for it. And that is what I think Malladin's Gate have achieved. Linking the feats into a skill and restrictive stance provides a much better, IMO, way of describing formalised fighting styles than any other system I can think of.

The swordsman's support is alsoe very good. There's 19 techniques, capturing a wide range of styles - 'Hard' martial arts 'soft' martial arts, bixing, horseback archery and lance fighting, twio handed swords, multiple rapier styles, crosbow, long bow and blackpowder firearms weapons. Of particular note is the new equipment. This includes some classic renaiisance weapons; black powder rules, Main Gauche (which integrates superbly with the Offhand Parry feat), and my favourite, the Smallsword, a classic of English renaissance fighting styles.

Overall this is a great book, perhaps let down by the artwork, which is sparse and mainly just pencil sketches instead of a nice bold piece of line art. It would have been better if they'd just gone over the lines in black in an art package, as the result is somewhat 'thin'. Another criticism I have is the size of the book. I think 90 pages is just toomuch for a PDF, especially when itcould quite easily be 2 separate books. I'm sure some people wil be put off by having to buy one class when they are only interested in the other. However, this is a fantastic product on its game content alone and a worthy addition to anyone's hard drive. I would seriously recommend anyone with a homebrew setting buying this and rethinking your deities and priest classes with the cultist in mind. As for the Swordman, that's probably one for the players. If you like swashbuckling characters, or any other type of specialist fighter, this is the class for you!