Using swashbuckling adventures alongside the core rules

[kenjib]

I've been looking over swashbuckling adventures and wondering how compatible it is with other d20 stuff. There seems to be some power escalation going on. One example is that you can take three feats to get a pretty massive armor class with no armor. Another is that many of the fighting school PRCs are significantly more beneficial than continuing to progress in standard fighter levels and I don't think the prerequisites are strict enough to justify it. You only give up half a bonus feat and get lots of extra powers in return.

Now I can see that, taken as a self contained game and in a swashbuckling context, all of these rules seem like they could work together well. Everyone serious about fighting would take a fighting school PRC, for example, and so there aren't really power imbalance issues.

I wonder if it's a problem when trying to steal stuff from this supplement and use it with standard D&D and rules from other supplements balanced against the core rules. Does anyone have experience actually using this book at the table and have any feedback about this?

It almost seems like it could also help to balance fighters out in a low magic campaign where the magic equipment isn't quite as omnipresent to keep them on par with the spell casters.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Using Swashbuckling Adventures with Core Rules.

I wouldn't recommend using the Unarmored Defense proficiencies unless you're running a low-magic game. After looking through the Magic Items that would be available in Theah (based off of the magic available to the witch class), there would be no defensive magic at all- with the exception of Dexterity boosting items, the Cat's Grace spell, and magical armor. No bracers, no rings of protection, no amulets of natural armor, no Mage Armor spell, no Shield spell... you get the idea. The Unarmored Defense feat serves the same purpose as the class defense bonus in Star Wars and Wheel of Time. If you could stack it with magical "buffing" spells, it would be absolutely game-breaking. At least basic unarmored defense is nearly essential in Theah- unless you're playing a Fighter or Paladin from Eisen who is after some heavy-duty Dracheneisen armor.

As for going the other way (using core materials in Theah), I've already written a list of approved weapons, spells, equipment, feats, and prestige classes from the splatbooks, as well as a few of Fantasy Flight, Bastion Press, and AEG's books. I would post them, but they're on a disk right now- and this bloody iMac doesn't even have a floppy drive. <sigh>