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Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Player's Guide
The Player's Guide to Blackmoor has what every player of Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign is looking for. New classes, prestige classes, skills, feats and spells are just some of the information contained on these pages.
- GenresGaming
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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May 21, 2014
Copyright 2006, 240 pages, softcover, minimal interior art (some of it iffy quality), copyright 2006 by Zeitgeist games. ISBN 0-9785761-1-X; ZTG4506. It's written for the d20 system; the credits make it pretty obvious that Arneson had relatively little to do directly with the book other than apparently overall approval. Lots of typos-not overwhelming, but common enough.
Three new character classes presented-Elderkin, Idolater, Merchant. Elderkin and Idolater are alternate casting classes of somewhat limited usefulness. Elderkin have a boost of getting past spell resistance. Idolater has a mixed bag of spells including cleric and MU types; an interesting concept but not fully realized. Merchants would be better merchants by taking another class like e.g. Aristocrat or Factotum.
Six new skills are presented-while most systems are collapsing all sense skills into perception, here are added Smell, Taste, and Touch. Twenty pages of new feats run the gamut of silly to good. I don't suspect much of any of this would get used in a typical campaign.
Four new prestige classes-Jester, Spiked Charger, Sunsinger, Tusked Warrior. The Jester is as expected. The Sunsinger is a sort of Radiant Servant of Pelor type, using the Sun's light to squash undead baddies. The Spiked Charger is a specialist in (you guessed it) charging in spiked armor. The Tusked Warrior is an Orcish specialty and gets a bite attack that gradually becomes pretty ferocious. It would make an amusing NPC.
Then comes a whole huge list of new spells and new magic items, again ranging from silly and obscure to pretty cool. Lots of the spells somewhat mimic some specific creature's defining ability-Bison's Stampede, Boar's Ferocity, Cheetah's Sprint, Crocodile's Breath. Wand of Beaver's Bite, anyone? A few new special materials are noted-boringly, they are bone, bronze, and wood. None of which would ever be used by a PC.
To this point (page 134) the whole book is just another d20 supplement and not even a particularly good one at that. But then we get to the good stuff. Here we enter the legendary campaign of Blackmoor. We get the Church of Blackmoor, the Noble Houses of Blackmoor, Independent Wizard's Groups, The Eldritch Underground, and Other Organizations Within Blackmoor. These ~90 pages complete the book. The intricacies of Blackmoor are surprisingly urbane FRPG fare, unfortunately.
As with every other Blackmoor product I've owned, used, or read, I was underwhelmed. It's a campaign world, sure, it's famous as heck, and it's been around forever. It's detailed. It's got it quirks and flavor. But it's just not that compelling. The big conflict presented as the basis for most Blackmoor organizations? A fight between spellcaster groups for political supremacy.
Three new character classes presented-Elderkin, Idolater, Merchant. Elderkin and Idolater are alternate casting classes of somewhat limited usefulness. Elderkin have a boost of getting past spell resistance. Idolater has a mixed bag of spells including cleric and MU types; an interesting concept but not fully realized. Merchants would be better merchants by taking another class like e.g. Aristocrat or Factotum.
Six new skills are presented-while most systems are collapsing all sense skills into perception, here are added Smell, Taste, and Touch. Twenty pages of new feats run the gamut of silly to good. I don't suspect much of any of this would get used in a typical campaign.
Four new prestige classes-Jester, Spiked Charger, Sunsinger, Tusked Warrior. The Jester is as expected. The Sunsinger is a sort of Radiant Servant of Pelor type, using the Sun's light to squash undead baddies. The Spiked Charger is a specialist in (you guessed it) charging in spiked armor. The Tusked Warrior is an Orcish specialty and gets a bite attack that gradually becomes pretty ferocious. It would make an amusing NPC.
Then comes a whole huge list of new spells and new magic items, again ranging from silly and obscure to pretty cool. Lots of the spells somewhat mimic some specific creature's defining ability-Bison's Stampede, Boar's Ferocity, Cheetah's Sprint, Crocodile's Breath. Wand of Beaver's Bite, anyone? A few new special materials are noted-boringly, they are bone, bronze, and wood. None of which would ever be used by a PC.
To this point (page 134) the whole book is just another d20 supplement and not even a particularly good one at that. But then we get to the good stuff. Here we enter the legendary campaign of Blackmoor. We get the Church of Blackmoor, the Noble Houses of Blackmoor, Independent Wizard's Groups, The Eldritch Underground, and Other Organizations Within Blackmoor. These ~90 pages complete the book. The intricacies of Blackmoor are surprisingly urbane FRPG fare, unfortunately.
As with every other Blackmoor product I've owned, used, or read, I was underwhelmed. It's a campaign world, sure, it's famous as heck, and it's been around forever. It's detailed. It's got it quirks and flavor. But it's just not that compelling. The big conflict presented as the basis for most Blackmoor organizations? A fight between spellcaster groups for political supremacy.
Displaying 1 of 1 review