The Quintessential Fighter: Collector Series, Book One (Collector Series)

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the best d20 book yet published
Review: I am glad I discovered this book; it is exactly what the doctor ordered. This book is an homage to the "Complete _______'s Handbooks" of AD&D 2nd Edition fame. It's a very good read.

1st, the book introduces the concept of Character Concepts, which are similar to "kits" except less broken. Want to have your PC be of a certain background and not wait for prestige classes to do it? Then the concepts work wonderful.

2nd, the prestige classes are nice, especially the "Legend", which is meant for charcaters above 15th level. Gives your fighter power more in line with a wizard of the level.

3rd, the new feats and weapons help hone the book

4th, and perhaps best of all, there is a system for Mass Combat, where fighting units are assigned HP, making for streamlined epic battles...

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the best d20 book yet published
Review: I am glad I discovered this book; it is exactly what the doctor ordered. This book is an homage to the "Complete _______'s Handbooks" of AD&D 2nd Edition fame. It's a very good read.

1st, the book introduces the concept of Character Concepts, which are similar to "kits" except less broken. Want to have your PC be of a certain background and not wait for prestige classes to do it? Then the concepts work wonderful.

2nd, the prestige classes are nice, especially the "Legend", which is meant for charcaters above 15th level. Gives your fighter power more in line with a wizard of the level.

3rd, the new feats and weapons help hone the book

4th, and perhaps best of all, there is a system for Mass Combat, where fighting units are assigned HP, making for streamlined epic battles...

Rating:
Summary: Recommended with reservation
Review: Let me start off by saying that if you're looking to add some variety and spice into the fighters in your campaign, this is the perfect book for you. Just about every page will give you new ideas for your game.

The feats, prestige classes and fighting styles are particularly useful. The feats round out a lot of fighter abilities, giving greater benefit to a high Dexterity than the Combat Expertise feat tree, without being too over-balanced.

The prestige classes are a bit of a mixed bag. Some, like the Legend prestige class, are highly useful while others, like the Berserker, seem like pale imitations of other, better defined classes. Still, even the Berserker description contains some abilities that might be interesting to work into a campaign with barbarians.

The fighting styles are a relatively new concept. Basically, you spend some XP and spend some time training, after meeting some prerequisites, and you learn special abilities based on a fighting style. From trick archery to archery from horseback, to fighting with two light weapons, to fighting with the double-bladed orc axe, there's something for just about everyone. Some would argue that the fighting styles are too powerful, but since by the time you've mastered the fifth and final level of a style you've spent 7500 XP, three months game time, quite a bit of gold and focussed your feats, skills and abilities in one direction, I think the cost weighs pretty evenly with the benefits.

The equipment section is pretty handy, particularly the section on black powder weapons that gets into a lot more detail than any other book I've seen. The damages on these weapons seem pretty high compared to their ranged-weapon counterparts, but the dangers of a misfired shell, coupled with the long loading time, balances this out. I particularly liked the addition of the magical weapon abilities for black powder weapons.

The OMCS, the mass combat system, seems pretty useful, although it does seem skewed towards creatures with many Hit Dice rather than those with actual combat ability. The system also doesn't take into account the difference in speed between units and how that could change the nature of combat. Still, it's a good basic framework to hang things off of.

The major problem is that the system gives too much benefit to PCs. A single character proficient with two weapons can, at 6th level, inflict nearly as much damage on a unit as an entire platoon of infantry of the same size as their target unit. That just doesn't seem quite right. Also, no credit is given for the effect that attacking from horseback would have on damage, defense and chance of striking one's opponent. All you get are extra hit points.

The book loses one star for the illustrations and story excerpts contained in the book. There are far too many cleavage-baring "chicks in chainmail" done in a simple line-drawing style. The stories, when they aren't directly offensive and misogynist, are just useless and rather drab, not doing anything but taking up space on the page.

The book loses another star for a lack of balance. Using this book, by 8th level I could create a fighter who, 30% of the time he strikes, inflicts quadruple normal damage with his attack, if he confirms his critical. That's just not a good thing, considering that his weapon, the flamberge, rolls 2d6 for damage.