Reviews: Complete Warrior & Shonen Jump
Well, first, I's a little late in the ball game this month (read broke) in getting Shonen Jump. Let's start there. Joe was completely right in that One Piece rocked. Again. Solidly. Dragonball Z wrapped up and they're moving that over to monthly's. Naruto wrapped up some combat and whatever it's called Go just moved the story to the next arc a bit. Regardless, twas a solid issue that I read in one night. Good stuff. But the One Piece, as usual, stole the show.
So, originally, I was going to get MMII and MMIII this month (well, actually, MMI, but Nick had two, so he gave me one. Rock on Nick. Rock on.). After a bit of review, though, I came to this conclusion. MMII is primarily CR 7-10 monthers. Sure, the lowest is CR 1/6, but the lower end stuff is on the rare side in that. At least the lower end stuff I'm interested in using. This initially wasn't a problem, but the 8th level party got moved out of the story arc and onto the "episodic" backburner, meaning they're our fall back group. If someone in the story can't make it, we'll play them. Otherwise, we're back at level 1 (2 really since Nick's got a teifling). So, the MMII and III got moved into the realms of collection for awhile.
Conversely, our monster campaign is a Barb, a Fighter, and a Fighter/Cleric. Complete Warrior seemed the way to go. I read it in one night.
First chapter is the new "base" classes. Quotes because any DM can simply say no. Hexblade is a pseudo-spellcasting sword swinger with the ability to give opponents negatives to dice rolls. Kinda cool, but doesn't fit my play style, which is why I want to play one. Like to challenge my RPG box.
Samurai is crap. There're about 5 d20 samurai variants, and this one focus on dual weilding the daisho, with a bonus to staring basically. Maybe it wouldn't seem like crap to me if our players were different, but I don't want to encourage Nick to stare at anything, and nobody else really thinks of doing something other than full on attacking.
More my style is the swashbuckler. Basically a fighter, minus feats (almost said proficencies...damn 2nd edition), but with a bonus to reflex saves at certain levels, and the added bonus of some interesting jump/tumble maneuvers, and the ability to add the Intelligence bonus to damage with the Strength bonus. Good times.
Chapter two is a buttload of prestige classes, as these have been the bread and butter of most of WotC's "expanded" rules since the beginning of 3.5. Some look pretty fun, like the Whirling Dervish. I'm sure all of them have a spot in some campaign or another. But I learned at the start of the last campaign, it's better to build the campaign around the players than to give em a set of standards that are required. Sorry, Monty, it's true. The players will either A) balk and find a way around it (woe to the DM that says 'no' to something after a player finds a loophole. that's a good way to ruin a game session.) or B) completely ignore it (also known as Spymaster=Elemental Savant=Windrider=halfling monk syndrome). If you like prestige classes, this book's worth the money for this chapter alone.
Supplemental Rules is next, I think. It's all feats. Most of the Divine Feats are reprints from Defenders of Faith and Masters of the Wild I think. Hell, a lot of the regular feats are rehashing of old ones, but 3.5 edition. The two coolest parts of this chapter are the Tactical Feats and the Weapon Style Feats. Tactical feats are a set of very specific feats rolled into one general feat. For instance, Uncanny Defense (or whatever the hell it's called), let's you dodge a flank attack AND make your attacker hit his comrade, OR cause an attack of opportunity by moving out of a threatened aread AND then get a free trip attack in if your opponent misses (cause he's now overextended), OR do something else very specific that I can't remember. Weapon Style Feats give you a little bonus if fighting with certain weapon combos. Fighting with two maces? If you hit the same opponent in one round, you get an EXTRA attack on that opponent. Sword and dagger? I think that one gives you a free disarm attempt if you hit with both weapons. Good stuff.
There're some new spells in here, but I glossed over those in my reading. Nothing super cool. And finally, the book wraps up with some ideas on PCs in warfare (coulda used that 4 months ago, although it's mostly stuff I'd thought of, just in a random rolls chart), as well as some combat-centric deities and a good section on running a low magic campaign.
I thought the page count was a little low for the money, as I thought the same thing about Complete Divine. John and I are in agreement that they could have went two ways with the 'complete' whatever set. Either mix Divine and Arcane into one book and charge $40, same with Warrior and Adventurer, OR, made a Player's Handbook II, which included all of the new base classes, as well as spells and rules variants, and just put all of the prestige classes into a Prestigious Maximus type of book. Granted, that would have REALLY screwed up WotC.
Gotta post, changing computers.
So, originally, I was going to get MMII and MMIII this month (well, actually, MMI, but Nick had two, so he gave me one. Rock on Nick. Rock on.). After a bit of review, though, I came to this conclusion. MMII is primarily CR 7-10 monthers. Sure, the lowest is CR 1/6, but the lower end stuff is on the rare side in that. At least the lower end stuff I'm interested in using. This initially wasn't a problem, but the 8th level party got moved out of the story arc and onto the "episodic" backburner, meaning they're our fall back group. If someone in the story can't make it, we'll play them. Otherwise, we're back at level 1 (2 really since Nick's got a teifling). So, the MMII and III got moved into the realms of collection for awhile.
Conversely, our monster campaign is a Barb, a Fighter, and a Fighter/Cleric. Complete Warrior seemed the way to go. I read it in one night.
First chapter is the new "base" classes. Quotes because any DM can simply say no. Hexblade is a pseudo-spellcasting sword swinger with the ability to give opponents negatives to dice rolls. Kinda cool, but doesn't fit my play style, which is why I want to play one. Like to challenge my RPG box.
Samurai is crap. There're about 5 d20 samurai variants, and this one focus on dual weilding the daisho, with a bonus to staring basically. Maybe it wouldn't seem like crap to me if our players were different, but I don't want to encourage Nick to stare at anything, and nobody else really thinks of doing something other than full on attacking.
More my style is the swashbuckler. Basically a fighter, minus feats (almost said proficencies...damn 2nd edition), but with a bonus to reflex saves at certain levels, and the added bonus of some interesting jump/tumble maneuvers, and the ability to add the Intelligence bonus to damage with the Strength bonus. Good times.
Chapter two is a buttload of prestige classes, as these have been the bread and butter of most of WotC's "expanded" rules since the beginning of 3.5. Some look pretty fun, like the Whirling Dervish. I'm sure all of them have a spot in some campaign or another. But I learned at the start of the last campaign, it's better to build the campaign around the players than to give em a set of standards that are required. Sorry, Monty, it's true. The players will either A) balk and find a way around it (woe to the DM that says 'no' to something after a player finds a loophole. that's a good way to ruin a game session.) or B) completely ignore it (also known as Spymaster=Elemental Savant=Windrider=halfling monk syndrome). If you like prestige classes, this book's worth the money for this chapter alone.
Supplemental Rules is next, I think. It's all feats. Most of the Divine Feats are reprints from Defenders of Faith and Masters of the Wild I think. Hell, a lot of the regular feats are rehashing of old ones, but 3.5 edition. The two coolest parts of this chapter are the Tactical Feats and the Weapon Style Feats. Tactical feats are a set of very specific feats rolled into one general feat. For instance, Uncanny Defense (or whatever the hell it's called), let's you dodge a flank attack AND make your attacker hit his comrade, OR cause an attack of opportunity by moving out of a threatened aread AND then get a free trip attack in if your opponent misses (cause he's now overextended), OR do something else very specific that I can't remember. Weapon Style Feats give you a little bonus if fighting with certain weapon combos. Fighting with two maces? If you hit the same opponent in one round, you get an EXTRA attack on that opponent. Sword and dagger? I think that one gives you a free disarm attempt if you hit with both weapons. Good stuff.
There're some new spells in here, but I glossed over those in my reading. Nothing super cool. And finally, the book wraps up with some ideas on PCs in warfare (coulda used that 4 months ago, although it's mostly stuff I'd thought of, just in a random rolls chart), as well as some combat-centric deities and a good section on running a low magic campaign.
I thought the page count was a little low for the money, as I thought the same thing about Complete Divine. John and I are in agreement that they could have went two ways with the 'complete' whatever set. Either mix Divine and Arcane into one book and charge $40, same with Warrior and Adventurer, OR, made a Player's Handbook II, which included all of the new base classes, as well as spells and rules variants, and just put all of the prestige classes into a Prestigious Maximus type of book. Granted, that would have REALLY screwed up WotC.
Gotta post, changing computers.
posted by Amazing Shafeman at 1:40 PM
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