Wildscape is the latest offering from the Legends & Lairs line of books. This one tackling the wilderness in two parts. The stronger part is the first chapter with its rules for rangers and druids while latter chapters help a GM flesh out the wilderness.
When 3.5 hit the streets, many looked at the ranger with its new levels of versatility and said, “Is that all?” Fantasy Flight heard you and crafted two weapon styles, two-handed fighting and spear fighting. These abilities are sometimes different than those found in the Player's Handbook as their not virtual feats as much as special abilities. For example, the two-handed fighting style gives you a bonus to armor class when using a two handed weapon for your first ability while the second ability at 6th level is Whirlwind Attack, ending with the ability to sacrifice armor class bonus for damage bonus.
While the weapon styles are interesting, of more interest were the specialists. These ranged from explorers, lorekeepers and outriders, to ranger knights and slayers. These individuals gain no weapon specialties but rather, specialties with their field of experience. The slayer for example, gets a sneak attack at each special ability increment so someone gaining all three would have a bonus +3d6 special attack.
Now in my own campaigns, I almost never have NPC rangers who can cast spells. I just don't like it. If the NPC is a minor character, I use the Expert with some specialized skills. If it's a more important NPC that may travel with the characters, I use something like the Scout from the Warcraft book or the non-spellcasting Ranger from the Complete Warrior. There are several specialties here that encompass those introduced as well as those from the core rules, meaning two-weapon fighters and bow masters.
The only bad part is that the special abilities don't start kicking in until higher level. The variant ranger from the Complete Warrior gains new abilities at 6th, 11th, 13th and 16th level. Almost whenever they get a new spell level. The non-spellcasters here gain abilities at 12th, 14th, 16th and 18th level. Perfect for those higher level games where special abilities are often needed more, but useless to that 11th level ranger who could be casting greater magic fang or neutralize poison.
These special abilities continue on the route that earlier paths started. For example, the slayer who gains sneak attack, continues to gain sneak attack in addition to other abilities. The spear fighter continues to gain abilities using his spear even as the two-weapon fighter learns some special maneuvers with his own blades including rapid strike, allowing this master to gain an attack with his off-hand even during a standard action.
Now that's all well and cool. The bits on the druid are also cool but not quite as detailed. It's probably me though. Even with books like Bastion Press
Druids and Druidism I still don't like them. Like the monk, they just don't say standard fantasy to me. Still, those looking for new druid abilities will enjoy the new realms, similar to a cleric's domains. Druids now have a core druid spell list that all druids can use and then they select one of the new realms. These realms offer new powers and more options for spells in addition to background to explain the belief of that realm. These range from the neutral good defender to the chaotic neutral shepherd of chaos. It's a good section but reads more like a specialized spell listing with a few abilities tied into it for good measure. Great for adding personality to druids but I'd recommend Druids and Druidism for further ideas.
Those looking for other options for their players will be a little disappointed as only Wilderness Feats are provided. These include new tracking feats, improved track and greater track, that allow a player to basically do criminal profiling on a target and gain bonuses against them, to being able to sense activity for miles around them. Useful stuff but not overwhelming.
The bulk of the book helps the GM in using the wilderness to its fullest. The advice given over and over again is that special features aren't necessary to convey a sense of wonder to the players but the book works against its own advice often by giving several fantastical environments that could only happen in the most magical of settings.
Now each setting type gets its own chapter as follows; deserts, forests, mountains, plains, waterways, swamps, arctic terrain, wastelands. Chapters on running wilderness campaigns at the start of the section and on weather help round the book out.
Each chapter is broken up into roughly four areas. Basic, Advanced, Combat, Monsters. Under basic, you'd find information and obsticles that are common in most desert types. Under advanced, you'd find the strange and magical. Under combat, what rules apply when fighting in that terrain. Under monsters, a general run down of the more common core monsters and how they interact with the environment.
A lot of the ideas here are classic owing to many mediums ranging from comics and movies to novels, myth and other game systems. These range from the forests where time passes differently to the mountains that actually reach into other planes of existence. Some of these mini-settings could be used right alongside some of Monte Cook's Event books. How about the Metallic Deserts where the bones of the old gods can be found? Perfect for Requiem for a God. How about meteoric rain? While not quite in the same ballpark as the material in When the Sky Falls, it could be after shocks that effect the characters when they go to investigate the first sky fall.
It's useful material but it doesn't go into a lot of depth nor provide any maps or other visual aids to clarify its use. For example, how best to map something that is a slope? How to represent 3-D combat when it's not true 3-D unlike say flying or water based combat? And the information on monsters is very basic, often not that useful as the creatures covered tend to have their own sourcebooks. Take swamps. The monsters covered are black dragons, hags, hydras and lizardfok, stirges and undead. A few paragraphs on each creature are useful, but what about common stat blocks for those time pressed GMs? When talking about lizardfolk why are their spellcasters mainly druids instead of druids and sorcerers?
That's another part of the problem. Chapters for individual terrain types are useful and great for making things into small sized bites but there are other books out that cover this ground like AEG's Wilds or the Scarred Lands Wilderness and Wasteland. This doesn't count those books devoted to a specific terrain or type like Bastion Press and it's Into The series which currently has Into the Green and Into the Black. This doesn't count books yet to be released like MonkeyGod's Frost and Fur.
Another problem is that inflation has finally caught up to the Legend & Lairs line up. Where once such a book would've cost $24.95, it now costs $27.95. This is perfectly understandable as it is 2004 and a few years have passed since the first hardcover was introduced. Another problem, for me at least, is that this book follows the bad example set by Cityworks and provides a preview of another Fantasy Flight Game. Ironically enough, another Mike Mearls book. Grimm is a great game and very imaginative. Some prestige classes, new spells, new monsters that inhabit the fantastical lands or other material that could be immediately used, would've been better
The book boasts the same great layout and art style that Fantasy Flight is known for. Artists this round include David Griffith, and Tyler Walpole among others. Unfortunately, I can't see the artists names clearly on several illustrations otherwise I'd point out the artists of one of my favorites on page 163 of an older man wielding a staff walking through a massive rainstorm. Great job there. Editing is good for the most part with the book's ease of reference very high. Some of the material, like the non-spellcasting rangers and other combat paths, I've already invested into my campaign while other bits are slowly working their way, much like the material from other wilderness based books, into the setting one skirmish at a time.
For the GM who hasn't invested in 3.0 sourcebooks, Wildscape is one of the first 3.5 all purpose reference book for wilderness campaigns and can earn its keep through repeated use.
. It says "Wildcraft" instead of "Wildscape".
