| Seafarer�s Handbook Produced by Fantasy Flight Games Cost: $24.95 Overall score: 7 of 10 If you have read Traps & Treachery you know what kind of quality Fantasy Flight�s Legends & Lairs series can produce. With this new product they explore adventures both above and below the sea. Chapter One deals with the player aspect of the game: races, feats, and equipment. The races (merfolk, half merrow, and aquatic elves) are more or less balanced as long most of the action occurs in the sea. The reef warrior (for aquatic elves) is an excellent NPC prestige class (I�m already thinking of a sunken Atlantis like area guarded by these strange mutants). There is a great deal of description of the difficulties of adventuring underwater as well as how to use deal with them in the game. Most of the new feats are balanced and useful. I�m leery of Child of the Sea, which basically gives a 1st level character the abilities to use water breathing. Fool�s Luck is way too powerful, giving an effect superior to the luck domain. Some DM�s may have issues with others. The equipment section has several interesting new additions to the deep and the magic items are reasonably good. The spell section is wonderful and has several adventure inspiring spells (compass curse and message in a bottle for instance). Chapter Two deals with seafaring campaigns. There is a great deal of useful background material here such as the organization of ships and various unusual threats like icebergs. Any DM planning a seafaring campaign would find this information invaluable. Also included is a sample port town. Chapter Three goes below the waves to the undersea campaigns. There is plenty of factual information about the sea as well as more fantastical ideas. The book presents three interesting adventure settings and numerous hooks and ways to use them. There is also the deep drow (groan), which is just silly. The aquatic template seems rife with potential abuses (not game abuse just silly stuff like aquatic rhinos). There are several other monsters of which the coral golem seems the most promising. Chapter Four caters to those of us who like to munch and play with numbers. The chapter details a ship building system capable of handling wood sailing ships to adamantite steam ships to shark towed submersibles. There a good number of weapons and other options to attached to your vessels as well. Chapter Five then provides a selection of 20 ships with deck plans. Many of these are useful as adventure locations or interesting threats. Finally Chapter Six deals with ship combat. The system presented here is more useful than either the standard system or the one presented in Dragon #294, covering such useful things as determining ramming damage, storm damage, and the effects of a good captain. The rule explanations are helped by some very illustrative examples. The best parts are the rules covering siege weapons doing strength checks to break parts of the ship (Otherwise you are faced with the prospect of a ballista that needs a minimum of two or more shots to break through an inch thick wood wall). Overall this is an excellent product with only a few balance issues. The only sad thing about the product is more a statement of the industry where $25 (or higher) products seem to be the norm. Sadly Wizards is the worst perpetrator of this and may some day face the consequences. |