Rating: 
Summary: What about the Fighter??
Review: I felt this was a great book for the Fist, the Monks. But I was playing a fighter at the time this book came out, and all excited I bought it. I felt that they lacked in giving the fighter a fair shake in information.
YOu get some feats, but most of it is focus'ed on Monks. WHy not call it "Fist and Fist"
Rating: 
Summary: The ultimate suppliment
Review: I found that this book contained everything I've been looking for: great new weapons, very useful feats, and lots of new prestige classes (I always wanted to make a Samurai!) "Sword and Fist" also contains various buildings which can be useful for DMs to base, for instance, a guard tower or an elf house on. If there is anything I was dissapointed about was how little information there was on chariots, but then, the book would also be better a thousand pages long. FIVE STARS!
Rating:
Summary: The ultimate suppliment
Review: I found that this book contained everything I've been looking for: great new weapons, very useful feats, and lots of new prestige classes (I always wanted to make a Samurai!) "Sword and Fist" also contains various buildings which can be useful for DMs to base, for instance, a guard tower or an elf house on. If there is anything I was dissapointed about was how little information there was on chariots, but then, the book would also be better a thousand pages long. FIVE STARS!
Rating:
Summary: A retrospective look
Review: I know Sword and Fist has been around for a while but I must say that of all the D&D accessories I don't own, this is the one I borrow the most often. The new feats are almost all pretty darn cool and useful for any character who enjoys leaping into the fray, not just fighters and monks. There are some nice prestige classes to look at, though I must say some of them are just absurdly over-powered (such as the ninja of the cresent moon.) I think that this is a definate must-have for even a part-time D&D geek.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great D&D Publication
Review: I was eagerly anticipating this book and the wait was worth it. The book starts off with a whole mess of new feats that make fighters and monks even deadlier (My favorite feat is Eagle Claw which allows unarmed sundering!). The feats are well thought out and none are overpowering. Next comes a short treatise on how to use certain skills in ways they weren't originally intended for, as well as a list of other Knowledge areas for learning. Finally we get to the prestige classes. This is the main part of the book. Many of the classes are very well done and at least one showed up in Dragon Magazine (which one escapes me at the moment). And none of them seemed too overpowering.It also includes a nice section on making monsters as fighters and monks with a few feats specific to monsters, also some detailed floor plans for different castles and fortifications. Another small section on tactics of fighters was nice. The section on organizations was helpful and gives a lot of flavor to add them into your campaign rather than simply saying, "Okay, to be a Ninja of the Crescent Moon you have to find a member and trail them back to their hideout then they'll initiate you." More info on the organizations gives the DM the chance to really integrte them into the world and make the experience better. All in all, another must have book from WotC.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but buy it used.
Review: I'm a keep it simple sort of reviewer. So here goes: The book is cool. It has great stuff in it but it is not worth the price that ...a typical store would charge for it. Only buy it if you can get a discount, or just buy it ...used.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific Help
Review: I'm not a big fan of fighters and monks, so I was expecting to be slightly disappointed by this D&D accessory. I'm happy to say that I was underestimating the writers of "Sword and Fist". This is a wonderful accessory to anyone who wants to create a character -- PC or NPC. I love the fact that this book added rules, rather than replacing rules in the game system. That practice was the thing I hated most about the Second Edition Handbooks and what I was secretly dreading. Sometimes, it's nice to be wrong. The high points of the book for me include the feats, prestige classes, new weapons, and castle plans. Before I describe any of these, let me say that my absolute favorite thing about "Sword and Fist" is that you can use the feats, skill ideas, new weapons, and prestige classes for characters beyond monks and fighters. It's perfectly possible to apply the new stuff in the book to rogues, wizards, or any other standard class. The prestige classes even detailed which classes were most likely to precede them. An admirable effort to make this book useful to everyone. Now on to the sections... The feats included weren't that original at times, but since I think feats and skills help personalize the characters to an incredible degree, I was thrilled with all of them. It's neat to mentally picture some of the feats and I think they help make combat much more descriptive. The prestige classes were also nice and I wanted to try quite a few of them out. I'm glad so many were added because again, it brings a great amount of customization to the player characters and to the NPCs. My favorite section (which was entirely too short) was the new weapons. I love the new weapons, especially the "war fan". I can't wait to try to create an NPC monk or rogue who wields that. The castle plans section was also useful to DMs (like me) who have no clue how a castle is built or what the upkeep on one costs. (Each plan lists how much time and gold is required for construction and how much gold is required for maintenance.) What are my least favorite sections? Tactics and organizations within a campaign. The tactics were all common sense put down in written word. I was slightly unnerved that the writers didn't think the readers would be able to determine simple concepts on their own. However, the section is so short, that it's not a big deal. Now, onto organizations within a campaign world -- it's nice that the book lists some sample organizations that can be used and changed to fit into any campaign world -- but I just don't see myself ever using them. They had just enough ideas within them to make them useful, but if any section could have been dropped from the book, then it was definitely this one. Overall, this was a great product and I'm so glad I got it. Now I'm anxiously awaiting the rest of the accessories that are similar to this one.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific Help
Review: I'm not a big fan of fighters and monks, so I was expecting to be slightly disappointed by this D&D accessory. I'm happy to say that I was underestimating the writers of "Sword and Fist". This is a wonderful accessory to anyone who wants to create a character -- PC or NPC. I love the fact that this book added rules, rather than replacing rules in the game system. That practice was the thing I hated most about the Second Edition Handbooks and what I was secretly dreading. Sometimes, it's nice to be wrong. The high points of the book for me include the feats, prestige classes, new weapons, and castle plans. Before I describe any of these, let me say that my absolute favorite thing about "Sword and Fist" is that you can use the feats, skill ideas, new weapons, and prestige classes for characters beyond monks and fighters. It's perfectly possible to apply the new stuff in the book to rogues, wizards, or any other standard class. The prestige classes even detailed which classes were most likely to precede them. An admirable effort to make this book useful to everyone. Now on to the sections... The feats included weren't that original at times, but since I think feats and skills help personalize the characters to an incredible degree, I was thrilled with all of them. It's neat to mentally picture some of the feats and I think they help make combat much more descriptive. The prestige classes were also nice and I wanted to try quite a few of them out. I'm glad so many were added because again, it brings a great amount of customization to the player characters and to the NPCs. My favorite section (which was entirely too short) was the new weapons. I love the new weapons, especially the "war fan". I can't wait to try to create an NPC monk or rogue who wields that. The castle plans section was also useful to DMs (like me) who have no clue how a castle is built or what the upkeep on one costs. (Each plan lists how much time and gold is required for construction and how much gold is required for maintenance.) What are my least favorite sections? Tactics and organizations within a campaign. The tactics were all common sense put down in written word. I was slightly unnerved that the writers didn't think the readers would be able to determine simple concepts on their own. However, the section is so short, that it's not a big deal. Now, onto organizations within a campaign world -- it's nice that the book lists some sample organizations that can be used and changed to fit into any campaign world -- but I just don't see myself ever using them. They had just enough ideas within them to make them useful, but if any section could have been dropped from the book, then it was definitely this one. Overall, this was a great product and I'm so glad I got it. Now I'm anxiously awaiting the rest of the accessories that are similar to this one.
Rating: 
Summary: The gloves are off...
Review: In WotC's first major rules expansion, they have produced a product that adds new options to the existing rules and still manages to add flavor to the game. This book gives you more prestige classes, new feats and skills, new weapons & magic items, and in perhaps the most useful section- examples of how the combat rules can be used to maximum advantage. The new prestige classes serve two purposes: they instantly give DMs and players more options for PC and NPC play, and they show DMs more examples of how prestige classes can be built. Most of the new classes in this volume are the standard cultural variants (samurai, ninja, cavalier, archer) with a few fantasy-themed exotics (ghostwalker and perhaps the silliest of the lot, the drunken master-a character whose attributes increase with the consumption of alcohol) thrown in for flavor. WotC goes the extra yard and describes some of these prestige classes as organizations with goals and initiations so they are ready to insert into a existing campaign. The Knights of the Watch (a chivalrous knightly order) and the Ravagers (a group bent on violence and destruction) are typical fare, but like everything else they are easily customized. The new feats and skills broaden the fighter class to the point that fighters can progress along entirely different paths and evolve into vastly different fighting machines. The core rules made this possible, but new feats like spring attack and "5 foot blindsight" can really lend weight to a player's wish to be different. Sure - you can SAY your fighter seems to have eyes in the back of his head, but if the character takes the feat of the same name, you have rules to make your fighter's persona have a real game effect. This is undoubtedly what the WotC folks were shooting for, and more power to them. The new weapons and magic items provide tools for the diverse characters that PCs can now create. From Fukimi-bari (small needles that ninjas spit at people) to the Mercurial Greatsword (an instant favorite of the power-gamer) - the weapon selection has broadened considerably. Most of the weapons seem to have avoided the common pitfall of simply being differently shaped versions of the same stats. WotC has also thought to head-off this kind of thing by providing equivalents for new weapon types (e.g. "A Katana is equivalent to weapon X" for stats). This gives a DM much-needed guidelines to handle the player whose character simply has to have an Atlatl. In the section titled "The Game Within the Game" WotC takes the nebulous collection of combat feats and skills and gives a player examples on how to use them effectively. As any player in their first 3rd Edition mass combat knows, the new combat rules are much more complicated than they first appear. Sure they're easy to use, but when a lot of feats and skills collide in battle, new combinations are bound to come up. WotC provides some very basic advice about attacks of opportunity and movement, and follows it up with two wonderful examples of feat-oriented combat, complete with explanation and character stats. In my experience, these kind of examples are the best way to teach people how to game properly (WotC should have put TEN of them in this book, along with one a week on their website - there's really no substitute for seeing the rules in action). They also take the time to impress on you how truly fearsome a creature with reach can be in combat, (DMs, try this: Give all the trolls in your campaign the new "Large and in Charge" feat and watch all your players suddenly develop an interest in polearms....*grin*) The worst thing I can say about this book is that it costs as much as the core rulebooks. One look at the contents convinced me it was worth having, but its clear that WotC is bound and determined to make some money off the expansions. But so far, WotC has managed to avoid TSR's recurring problem of superceding the core rules in a supplement. By adding rules within the main framework they have created a really useful addition to the game...and they've made combat in D&D a whole lot more interesting. So...watch your back.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good/ not bad
Review: Isn't it nice to have some new rules to tweak and twang a campaign. I thought the book was a little short for twenty bucks, but hey oh well. I loved the prestige classes, and can now imbed ravagers into my grittier cities. I'm also trying to qualify a sorceror for the ghostwalker class. Although a lot of the new feats and classes were instance specific, as a DM and Player it's fun to give myself new ammo that would drive me crazy and vice versa. So if I haven't confused you and you like fighters and monks, pick it up, it's an enriching read.
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