Tests of Skill: A d20 Adventure and Sourcebook for Fantasy Role-Playing Games

Rating:
Summary: great help for lower level campaigns
Review: Tests of Skill is a great resource for a Dm looking to find ways to help the players move away from hack and slash gaming. It provides several ways to put charactors into situations where they must use skills other than just combat. A great help.

Rating:
Summary: Very useful
Review: I bought this module in November and have run three sessions over Christmas using it. It has some cool ideas on how to use skills and tons of monsters and NPCs in it. About a third of it is new prestige classes, skills and monsters and stuff like that so it'll be usefule even after I'm done running the module part.

Rating:
Summary: cool ideas
Review: I love hack and slash games as much as the next gamer, but a change of pace is always welcome. Tests of skill is more of an excercise in problem solving. Creative use of skills can make it so no blood need be shed. I like that premise. Theres some interesting prestige class ideas in here, like the humbug: a guy pretending to be a wizard, (think wizard of oz).

Rating:
Summary: Non-Linear Plot !?!
Review: In a d20 module market dominated by lead-you-by-the-nose plots and statistic heavy hack & slash, Tests of Skill is a welcome departure from the norm. It presents a setting a la 1st Edition modules where a framework geography is established, the setting is populated by interesting NPCs and encounters, and a rough narrative plot is outlined. Like most memorable roleplaying, the bulk of the story is made by the players involved. Tests of Skill is definitely a module for thinking gamers and often the 'kick in the door' types will be shocked by the difficulty of the fights they might start.

Rating:
Summary: Superb Stand-alone or Complement
Review: Not to use an overused cliché, but this is truly a welcome addition to any campaign. Meticulously researched with regard to history, and paying great attention to detail, this book converts some great thoughts in an easy-to-use gaming format which can serve to augment other campaigns or be the basis for the construction of a new campaign. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great addition to the genre!
Review: Tests of Skill is a welcome addition to the D20 fantasy line-up, taking adventures beyond simple hack and slash to actually employing skills and intellect in accomplishing adventure goals. The book allows DMs to introduce a much greater and more mature level of realism to their games by providing players with multiple paths and ways to solve problems... the sword is not always the best solution.

Just as the Experts supplement expanded the NPC Experts class into living, breathing characters that could realistically be expected in any fantasy/medieval village or welcome in any adventuring party... Tests of Skill takes the skills and feats of character classes into account, allowing the background abilities and skills of characters to come into the foreground.

The book contains a number of excellent scenarios which allow players to use their wits and their characters skills to complete tasks and to win the day. It includes some great guidelines for developing this trend into your own games and providing your fellow players with a much more solid role-playing experience.

Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Great Dark Ages Adventure
Review: This adventure really does work on every level and represents, I think, the best that is out there today for Dungeons & Draons (i.e., d20 system).
Tests of Skill is an campaign setting, a series of adventures, and so much more (e.g., monster, prestige classes, new skills and feats). The content in the books is organized in such as way as to allow DMs to present the various encounters in any number of ways, permitting them to be incorporated into almost any sort of game. And a lot of research clearly went into this book, which presents a campaign setting recognizably set in the Dark Ages of the "Silurian Heights" region of Britain.
This one is fun the DMs and players alike and is a great value.


Rating:
Summary: Best reference ever......
Review: This book along with "Nuisances" and "Warriors" are the best reference books anyone could possibly invest on for D20 fantasy role-playing....."Tests of Skill" covers everything from Encounters to Maps...

Rating:
Summary: More than a module
Review: This book is packed! A huge landscape to explore, with NPCs and continuing story threads to interact with (with lots of notes and surprises throughout--kill someone or make them mad, you may run into the other end of the story elsewhere and pay the consequences). Towns and weather, quests/scenarios and detailed encounters (nice illustrations too). A lot of skills and feats and prestige classes, a couple of new monsters, and a new cleric domain (Fear). And top it off with maps. One of the maps is a cool top-down photo of a dungeon beneath some ruins, that's really a physical model--made out of Dwarven Forge MasterMaze set(s) for you to covet. The area map of the module's geography is thoughtfully provided in DM and player's handout versions.

Everything is set up to either be used as a whole or dropped, as a whole or piecemeal, into your own campaign. Get this book, let Skirmisher write that corner of your world for you, and jazz up your game!

Rating:
Summary: Amazing suppliment
Review: This suppliment is amazing for gamemasters new or experienced. It is rich and detailed. You can use it in your campaign, or there is enough for a stand alone setting.

Pure Brilliance.