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Someday I shall create a giant mystical tome know to all as the COMPLEAT GAMETH LIBRAM.
No kidding, I wonder if they would give me a grant and a teaching license and let me teach College Gaming 102. 101 would be videogames and 102 would be pen and paper. I would surely have a required reading list for players of the D20 section of the course... And most likely this would be on it.
WotC produced, which is all the stamp of approval I need to buy. That means I trust 'em, and so far they haven't let me down badly. Their track record freakin' speaks for itself. Period.
So let's look at the sections:
- Chapter One: New Classes
- Chapter Two: Expanded Classes
- Chapter Three: New Feats
- Chapter Four: New Spells
- Chapter Five: Building Your Identity
- Chapter Six: The Adventuring Group
- Chapter Seven: Affiliations
- Chapter Eight: Re-Building Your Character
- Chapter Nine: Quick NPC and PC building
Chapter One: New Classes
Well first off, we have the beguiler. Remember the warmage and his narrow, yet devastating evocation abilities. Well, this is a warmage that decided to go with illusion and enchantments instead. They can wear light armor, cast like a rogue attacks, and overcome startled opponents' SR with spell like sneak attacks. Very narrow spell list though, and very specialized. Your evil trickster mage could be one of these.
Then, we have the dragon shaman. Picture a druid with a dragon totem. Change out a breath weapon for animal shape, and some aura and dragon abilities for the druid stuff. Seems to me to be much more combat orientated than a regular druid, but with some healing and side-spell abilities.
Next, the duskblade. The bare heart of this is simply a multiclassed fighter/wizard combo. They took the multiclass and simply merged it into a new core class. For those who cannot make up their minds and want a hybrid. But still, it is well done.
And last, we have the knight. A defensive orientated fighter who literally maneuvers his enemies around the field. A master tactician for fighting. Not the best fighter, but the best at figuring when and where to fight.
Chapter Two: Expanded Classes
This section is one most players will salivate upon. It is a simple concept. Variant abilities to learn at certain levels. That is it. Instead of a bonus feat, you get this. The plethora of options is what makes d20 the way it is and here you go. Even more confusion for some GM's as now you really have to read that character sheet. It's WotC, so it really seems balanced to me also.
Chapter Three: New Feats
Dear god, it's full of stars. 60+ new feats, including bigger ends for chaining of feats, and several "why didn't I think of that?" types of feats your characters need. Some are funny, and some are deadly. Check out Robilar's Gambit. It gives a bonus to your enemy's attack and damage, at the expense of making their attacks provide attacks of opportunity to you. Kind of an all out way to fight...
Chapter Four: New Spells
Here they introduce a lot of spells. Plus the concept of dual school spells which count as being both schools at the same time. Also they add a sub-school of polymorph.
Check out very useful spells such as baleful blink. Imagine making an enemy be subject to the blink effect whenever they attack or cast, but not when they take an attack. Disrupting only their actions. Evil! Why did I not think of that???
Chapter Five: Building Your Identity
This section is all about role playing. In specific, your character's. What she was like as a kid, how she became an adventurer, and typical behaviors you would expect her to use. A very useful guide for a new player that wants to make sure they don't play Bob the fighter, or Krunk the barbarian. If you don't want to be a superficial chunk of paper with a name, you can use this as a great guide on how to make your PC interesting. This is all about your background. They also discuss emotions typical to certain characters. Personality archetypes. Personality traits. And, how to manage paperwork!
Photocopy pages 143-146 and force the players to read them and take notes! Quiz them in the end. Make it so that they have to pass a 95% to play in your games. Seriously this section is a must read for all players. Even I learned stuff here. Rolling conventions! How to roll dice!
Read it, or I swear I will hurt you in the game.
Chapter Six: The Adventuring Group
This will help with all the group dynamics. How did they meet? What do they do together? How do they divvy up the loot? Who talks with the law afterwards? This is another must read section.
And a new mechanic is involved: Teamwork Benefit. A special thing learned and usable after the group works and trains as a team in a certain way to gain it. For example:
Camp Routine: the party has to set up who does what on setting up camp. They have to have goals and tasks assigned. They also need to know the order of who is on watch and for how long. The guy who leads has to have at least Survival 8+ ranks or the Self Sufficient feat. Each team member must have 1 rank in Survival. The benefit turns out that while on watch the characters gain a +2 to Spot and Listen checks, and even sleeping characters gain a +4 to Listen checks made to wake them.
A very nice additional mechanic to make people want to train and work together, and they even provide further tips in each case on how to make it work even better.
Chapter Seven: Affiliations
They add several groups you can join and define the two major types of affiliations as racial and social. The higher amount of ranks you have with an affilition the more benefits you gain.
For instance a human who has the Brightmantle Weapon Forge and Trading Consortium at rank of +4 gains the ability to get jobs from them as a freelancer. He did something for the dwarves and they remember what a chum he is and throws him a job every so often.
A level 15 cleric of Heironious that has +26 affiliation with the group known as The Chalice gains up to a free raise dead, but is almost instantly recognized by any devils he meets.
Chapter Eight: Rebuilding Your Character
So your level 15 and can't enjoy the benefits of the earlier chapters? Guess again! They should re-title this as "How to Re-Write the Character Sheet."
And when they mean you can go on a rebuild quest to change your race, they show you how and where to go. And what happens. In other words, not only do you have the millions of options of races, classes, skills, feats, and spells. Now you can at sometime just re-write the whole damned thing.
Granted it's not easy and a little scary, but for those that just crave change here is another section for you.
There you go, another WotC book with some must read sections and a heckuva buttload of extra stuff to go with.
I recommend it
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