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[COMPLETE] Looking back at the leatherette series: PHBR, DMGR, HR and more!
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8380512" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>For <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16855/FOR10-Warriors-and-Priests-of-the-Realms-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>FOR10 Warriors and Priests of the Realms</em></a>, it's second verse, same as the first...except, not exactly.</p><p></p><p>For the most part, this book is exactly what you'd expect it to be. After the first book covered half of the four class groups, it's no real surprise that its follow-up would cover the second half. But it plays with the formula for the priest group, in a way that I found myself liking a great deal. But before getting further into that, the new classes deserve a look.</p><p></p><p>The harper is a Warrior class (i.e. in the same group as fighters, rangers, and paladins), and right away that made me raise an eyebrow. I mean, I've read enough of the Realms novels to know that the Harpers are a loose-knit organization that diversifies its operatives, but that's because a lot of those operatives treated...harping? Harpering? ...whatever it's called, as something of a side-gig more than an actual way of life. Maybe I'm misremembering, but the impression I always had was that most harpers were essentially people who let Harper high command know that they'd be happy to do the occasional mission for them, with only a dedicated core being all harpering all the time.</p><p></p><p>For those dedicated core members, I can see having a harper base class...but not as a member of the Warrior group. Really, given that the classical harpers tend to be itinerant rogues who with some musical talent (it's kind of in the name), I'd have expected a harper base class to be part of the Rogue group. Of course, I'd also have expected it to be in <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16839/FOR4-The-Code-of-the-Harpers-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>FOR4 The Code of the Harpers</em></a>, but here we are.</p><p></p><p>As it stands, the class does have several aspects to it that make it more rogue-ish, such as being able to hide in shadows and move silently as a thief or bard, along with being able to identify (harper) runes and use (harper) sign language, which are also percentage-based abilities. I'm honestly surprised they don't just give them their own secret language a la Druidic; they get the ability to <em>pass without trace</em> a few times per day, after all. Did I mention they can choose Warrior or Rogue nonweapon proficiencies without a penalty also?</p><p></p><p>Oddly, in what I suspect is a balancing mechanism (along with their higher ability score prerequisites and only getting bonus XP if they have very high Strength and Wisdom scores), they <em>can't</em> specialize in a weapon. Similarly, while it makes sense that you can't have evil-aligned harpers, I reserve the right to remain miffed about the book allowing any race to be a harper, but not outlining the demihuman level limits or multiclass combinations (and only implying that humans can dual-class into being harpers, with no word on if they can dual-class out of them). Some of us <em>liked</em> those restrictions, darn it!</p><p></p><p>And then we come to the other new class this book gives us: the crusader.</p><p></p><p>Funny thing though: that's not actually the class's name.</p><p></p><p>The book's sales page talks about this, but I can't resist repeating it here: in a case of parallel design (which is the nice way of saying that internal communication at TSR had apparently broken down), a crusader class was also being developed for <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17569/Faiths--Avatars-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Faiths & Avatars</em></a> (and which was subsequently reprinted in <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16864/Players-Option--Spells--Magic-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Player's Option - Spells & Magic</em></a>), which came out only a few months after FOR10 hit the streets. Given that F&A's crusader was nothing like the one here, and yet had the same name and were set in the same world, something needed to be done. </p><p></p><p>The result was that F&A notes, in the book's appendix, that the crusader class found here (that is, in <em>Warriors and Priests of the Realms</em>) is officially renamed the "holy crusader." Personally, I just love the idea that you can have a crusader and a holy crusader in the same party; that's got to make for some sort of awkwardness when the characters are comparing what they do.</p><p></p><p>As it is, the holy crusader (I'll keep using that name here for the sake of clarity) is said to be a recent invention; the book outlines that the gods basically invented this class after the Time of Troubles when they realized that their survival depended on proselytizing, which is kind of funny since the holy crusader seems more focused on defense than on swaying the hearts and minds of people. This class specifically doesn't gather followers and doesn't get to start their own stronghold; rather, they have to pick one existing temple as their "main source of guidance" (despite having the ability to use <em>augury</em>, <em>divination</em>, and <em>commune</em> multiple times per week - shouldn't that be per "tenday" - as they go up in level; this really amplifies the whole issue of "if you can talk to your god directly, and they talk back, is terrestrial guidance really necessary?" so often found in high-fantasy RPGs).</p><p></p><p>What makes the holy crusader different is that they occupy a space between the generic cleric and the specialty priest. More standardized than specialty priests are, the class is nevertheless defined by deity-specific special abilities. Some of these are fairly mundane, such as holy crusaders of Tyr being able to <em>detect evil</em> at will like a paladin, or holy crusaders of Arvoreen being required to take the sling as a weapon proficiency, but getting double the sling's rate of fire. Several deities offer benefits that are somewhat more expansive, and several of them change the holy crusader's ability to turn undead (i.e. the class's default assumption is that it can turn undead unless a particular deity says they can't, or has them command undead instead).</p><p></p><p>This is fairly innovative, occupying a niche that's essentially "specialty priest lite," as it presents a class that's still variable by deity, but which has far fewer deviations from a standardized baseline. Here, at least, we get a firm statement about multiclassing and dual-classing, which is that you can't do either with holy crusaders: if you want to play this class, you're single-classed. While there are no racial level limits given (<em>sigh</em>), there's an oddity in that not only is the class open to any race, but apparently the human gods will accept demihuman holy crusaders, while the reserve isn't true: the (few) demihuman gods outlined apparently only accept holy crusaders of the race they're a god of. I mean, I <em>guess</em> that's sort of always been the case for most divine spellcasting characters, but it feels odd to see it expressly acknowledged like this.</p><p></p><p>But of course, these new classes are just the bonus: the kits are what it's really about.</p><p></p><p>Insofar as the Warrior kits go, they're exactly what you'd expect if you read the previous volume. Each kit is geographically determined, having a table that overviews most of the information, followed by sub-groupings for areas within that geography to determine basic role-playing information as well as the special advantages and disadvantages of each region's take on that particular kit (though a few of the kits are for a single region only). I'll note that the regions outlined are <em>mostly</em> identical to the previous volume, though a few variances are to be found here and there.</p><p></p><p>I'll be honest: this part of the book didn't really wow me. That's largely because fighters in general (and most of these kits are made to be compatible with Warrior classes in general, which means they can't really reference ranger- or paladin-specific features where the special advantages and disadvantages are concerned) don't have very much in the way of things that can be tweaked. Spellcasting classes have all sorts of aspects to their magic use that can be altered, and rogues have their special rogue abilities, but fighters simply don't have much in the way of class features.</p><p></p><p>The end result is that a lot of these kits, in terms of the special abilities and restrictions that they add, tend to go for fairly prosaic options. A <em>lot</em> of them go for the "get a free nonweapon proficiency" route in terms of what benefits they give a character. That's not all of them of course - warriors of Nimbral can cast spells like a bard (of three levels lower) and can even do so in metal armor - but if you didn't use the "optional" proficiency rules, you'll have a lot of kits that need modifying.</p><p></p><p>Then we come to the priest kits, which are a different kettle of fish altogether.</p><p></p><p>Whereas everything up until now, in both this book and the previous one, has been kits divvied up by geography, the priest kits - which are actually cleric kits, since the book makes it clear that they're the only class that can take these - are divided up by faith.</p><p></p><p>What that means is that each of the priest kits essentially modify the generic cleric into something deity-specific. In fact, several deities have two kits, each outlining different aspects of their religion. It's essentially a different take on the same conceptual niche as the aforementioned holy crusader, taking a base class and then making part of their class features vary by deity, but without the wide degree of variation found among specialty priests (though here, things are switched around <em>slightly</em> more broadly than with the holy crusader).</p><p></p><p>Personally, I love this. While I didn't think much about it back in the day, having a one-size-fits-all class for wildly different gods has become less and less appealing to me over the years. While I still prefer specialty priests for just how far they'll often go in terms of changing things (to the point where I'd love to play in an AD&D 2E game that made specialty priests the <em>only</em> options available for divine spellcasting characters), anything that mixes things up for the cleric the way these kits do is a welcome addition to the game.</p><p></p><p>Somewhat surprisingly, this isn't where the book ends. There's a brief overview of a few nonweapon proficiencies (less than a half-dozen), and then we get a section on "Shrines, Temples, and Groves." Each of those three locations has their method of creation outlined, along with what powers they have. It's a nice little way of noting how the proverbial houses of the gods aren't sitting around defenseless, waiting to be looted or smashed by enemies of their faith. I had a bit of déjà vu there, as I was certain I'd read that before, but for the life of me I can't remember if it's something I read somewhere else, or if it's from the last time I looked this book over; I suspect the latter but I'm not sure. </p><p></p><p>Overall, this sourcebook continued the good work of its predecessor. While the Warrior section felt just a bit too same-y, the Priest part more than made up for it, to the point where I'm of the opinion that the latter half of the book justifies the entire thing (although, if you want either holy crusader abilities or cleric kits for gods beyond what's to be found here, you'll need to make them on your own; insofar as I know, this book never received any expansions or support material). It's definitely worthwhile if you want to adventure in the Realms, or even if you want to cherry-pick what's here for your own campaign.</p><p></p><p>And with that, there's just one more leatherette left...</p><p></p><p><em>Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 8380512, member: 8461"] For [url=https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16855/FOR10-Warriors-and-Priests-of-the-Realms-2e?affiliate_id=820][i]FOR10 Warriors and Priests of the Realms[/i][/url], it's second verse, same as the first...except, not exactly. For the most part, this book is exactly what you'd expect it to be. After the first book covered half of the four class groups, it's no real surprise that its follow-up would cover the second half. But it plays with the formula for the priest group, in a way that I found myself liking a great deal. But before getting further into that, the new classes deserve a look. The harper is a Warrior class (i.e. in the same group as fighters, rangers, and paladins), and right away that made me raise an eyebrow. I mean, I've read enough of the Realms novels to know that the Harpers are a loose-knit organization that diversifies its operatives, but that's because a lot of those operatives treated...harping? Harpering? ...whatever it's called, as something of a side-gig more than an actual way of life. Maybe I'm misremembering, but the impression I always had was that most harpers were essentially people who let Harper high command know that they'd be happy to do the occasional mission for them, with only a dedicated core being all harpering all the time. For those dedicated core members, I can see having a harper base class...but not as a member of the Warrior group. Really, given that the classical harpers tend to be itinerant rogues who with some musical talent (it's kind of in the name), I'd have expected a harper base class to be part of the Rogue group. Of course, I'd also have expected it to be in [url=https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16839/FOR4-The-Code-of-the-Harpers-2e?affiliate_id=820][i]FOR4 The Code of the Harpers[/i][/url], but here we are. As it stands, the class does have several aspects to it that make it more rogue-ish, such as being able to hide in shadows and move silently as a thief or bard, along with being able to identify (harper) runes and use (harper) sign language, which are also percentage-based abilities. I'm honestly surprised they don't just give them their own secret language a la Druidic; they get the ability to [i]pass without trace[/i] a few times per day, after all. Did I mention they can choose Warrior or Rogue nonweapon proficiencies without a penalty also? Oddly, in what I suspect is a balancing mechanism (along with their higher ability score prerequisites and only getting bonus XP if they have very high Strength and Wisdom scores), they [i]can't[/i] specialize in a weapon. Similarly, while it makes sense that you can't have evil-aligned harpers, I reserve the right to remain miffed about the book allowing any race to be a harper, but not outlining the demihuman level limits or multiclass combinations (and only implying that humans can dual-class into being harpers, with no word on if they can dual-class out of them). Some of us [i]liked[/i] those restrictions, darn it! And then we come to the other new class this book gives us: the crusader. Funny thing though: that's not actually the class's name. The book's sales page talks about this, but I can't resist repeating it here: in a case of parallel design (which is the nice way of saying that internal communication at TSR had apparently broken down), a crusader class was also being developed for [url=https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17569/Faiths--Avatars-2e?affiliate_id=820][i]Faiths & Avatars[/i][/url] (and which was subsequently reprinted in [url=https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16864/Players-Option--Spells--Magic-2e?affiliate_id=820][i]Player's Option - Spells & Magic[/i][/url]), which came out only a few months after FOR10 hit the streets. Given that F&A's crusader was nothing like the one here, and yet had the same name and were set in the same world, something needed to be done. The result was that F&A notes, in the book's appendix, that the crusader class found here (that is, in [i]Warriors and Priests of the Realms[/i]) is officially renamed the "holy crusader." Personally, I just love the idea that you can have a crusader and a holy crusader in the same party; that's got to make for some sort of awkwardness when the characters are comparing what they do. As it is, the holy crusader (I'll keep using that name here for the sake of clarity) is said to be a recent invention; the book outlines that the gods basically invented this class after the Time of Troubles when they realized that their survival depended on proselytizing, which is kind of funny since the holy crusader seems more focused on defense than on swaying the hearts and minds of people. This class specifically doesn't gather followers and doesn't get to start their own stronghold; rather, they have to pick one existing temple as their "main source of guidance" (despite having the ability to use [i]augury[/i], [i]divination[/i], and [i]commune[/i] multiple times per week - shouldn't that be per "tenday" - as they go up in level; this really amplifies the whole issue of "if you can talk to your god directly, and they talk back, is terrestrial guidance really necessary?" so often found in high-fantasy RPGs). What makes the holy crusader different is that they occupy a space between the generic cleric and the specialty priest. More standardized than specialty priests are, the class is nevertheless defined by deity-specific special abilities. Some of these are fairly mundane, such as holy crusaders of Tyr being able to [i]detect evil[/i] at will like a paladin, or holy crusaders of Arvoreen being required to take the sling as a weapon proficiency, but getting double the sling's rate of fire. Several deities offer benefits that are somewhat more expansive, and several of them change the holy crusader's ability to turn undead (i.e. the class's default assumption is that it can turn undead unless a particular deity says they can't, or has them command undead instead). This is fairly innovative, occupying a niche that's essentially "specialty priest lite," as it presents a class that's still variable by deity, but which has far fewer deviations from a standardized baseline. Here, at least, we get a firm statement about multiclassing and dual-classing, which is that you can't do either with holy crusaders: if you want to play this class, you're single-classed. While there are no racial level limits given ([I]sigh[/I]), there's an oddity in that not only is the class open to any race, but apparently the human gods will accept demihuman holy crusaders, while the reserve isn't true: the (few) demihuman gods outlined apparently only accept holy crusaders of the race they're a god of. I mean, I [i]guess[/i] that's sort of always been the case for most divine spellcasting characters, but it feels odd to see it expressly acknowledged like this. But of course, these new classes are just the bonus: the kits are what it's really about. Insofar as the Warrior kits go, they're exactly what you'd expect if you read the previous volume. Each kit is geographically determined, having a table that overviews most of the information, followed by sub-groupings for areas within that geography to determine basic role-playing information as well as the special advantages and disadvantages of each region's take on that particular kit (though a few of the kits are for a single region only). I'll note that the regions outlined are [i]mostly[/i] identical to the previous volume, though a few variances are to be found here and there. I'll be honest: this part of the book didn't really wow me. That's largely because fighters in general (and most of these kits are made to be compatible with Warrior classes in general, which means they can't really reference ranger- or paladin-specific features where the special advantages and disadvantages are concerned) don't have very much in the way of things that can be tweaked. Spellcasting classes have all sorts of aspects to their magic use that can be altered, and rogues have their special rogue abilities, but fighters simply don't have much in the way of class features. The end result is that a lot of these kits, in terms of the special abilities and restrictions that they add, tend to go for fairly prosaic options. A [i]lot[/i] of them go for the "get a free nonweapon proficiency" route in terms of what benefits they give a character. That's not all of them of course - warriors of Nimbral can cast spells like a bard (of three levels lower) and can even do so in metal armor - but if you didn't use the "optional" proficiency rules, you'll have a lot of kits that need modifying. Then we come to the priest kits, which are a different kettle of fish altogether. Whereas everything up until now, in both this book and the previous one, has been kits divvied up by geography, the priest kits - which are actually cleric kits, since the book makes it clear that they're the only class that can take these - are divided up by faith. What that means is that each of the priest kits essentially modify the generic cleric into something deity-specific. In fact, several deities have two kits, each outlining different aspects of their religion. It's essentially a different take on the same conceptual niche as the aforementioned holy crusader, taking a base class and then making part of their class features vary by deity, but without the wide degree of variation found among specialty priests (though here, things are switched around [i]slightly[/i] more broadly than with the holy crusader). Personally, I love this. While I didn't think much about it back in the day, having a one-size-fits-all class for wildly different gods has become less and less appealing to me over the years. While I still prefer specialty priests for just how far they'll often go in terms of changing things (to the point where I'd love to play in an AD&D 2E game that made specialty priests the [i]only[/i] options available for divine spellcasting characters), anything that mixes things up for the cleric the way these kits do is a welcome addition to the game. Somewhat surprisingly, this isn't where the book ends. There's a brief overview of a few nonweapon proficiencies (less than a half-dozen), and then we get a section on "Shrines, Temples, and Groves." Each of those three locations has their method of creation outlined, along with what powers they have. It's a nice little way of noting how the proverbial houses of the gods aren't sitting around defenseless, waiting to be looted or smashed by enemies of their faith. I had a bit of déjà vu there, as I was certain I'd read that before, but for the life of me I can't remember if it's something I read somewhere else, or if it's from the last time I looked this book over; I suspect the latter but I'm not sure. Overall, this sourcebook continued the good work of its predecessor. While the Warrior section felt just a bit too same-y, the Priest part more than made up for it, to the point where I'm of the opinion that the latter half of the book justifies the entire thing (although, if you want either holy crusader abilities or cleric kits for gods beyond what's to be found here, you'll need to make them on your own; insofar as I know, this book never received any expansions or support material). It's definitely worthwhile if you want to adventure in the Realms, or even if you want to cherry-pick what's here for your own campaign. And with that, there's just one more leatherette left... [i]Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.[/i] [/QUOTE]
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[COMPLETE] Looking back at the leatherette series: PHBR, DMGR, HR and more!
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