Reviews of 'Complete Adventurer'
Reviews of 'Complete Adventurer'
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Complete Adventurer is the latest in the 3.5 class handbooks by Wizards of the Coast. The subtitle says that this is "a guide to skillful characters of all classes". While this may lend itself to the idea of being a book for rogues, it proves to be far more.
Chapter One is Classes. Following the precedent set by prior books in this series, there are three new base classes. The ninja is pretty self-explanatory, being an Oriental rogue. I'm glad to see this as a base class now, compared to the ninja spy prestige class from Oriental Adventures. A variant on the rogue is introduced in the form of the scout. This class takes a few features from various classes, but provides plenty of new features as well. I'm not sure the skirmish ability was needed, as the sneak attack would have done just as well, but otherwise this is a top-notch class. For ranger-type characters in Dragonlance, this provides a great non-spellcasting option. My only other point of concern here is the d8 hit die rather than a d6. The third class introduced is the spellthief. This is another variant on the rogue that gives some spellcasting ability as well, but it also comes with a twist – the ability to steal spells and spell-like abilities. This makes for a great ambient spellcaster in the Age of Mortals in Dragonlance.
Chapter Two is Prestige Classes. Many have come from the 3.0 class books, some renamed and retooled, while others are new. There's the animal lord, beastmaster, bloodhound, daggerspell mage, daggerspell shaper, dread pirate, dungeon delver, exemplar, fochlucan lyrist, ghost-faced killer, highland stalker, maester, master of many forms, nightsong enforcer, nightsong infiltrator, ollam, shadowbane inquisitor, shadowbane stalker, shadowmind, spymaster, streetfighter, tempest, thief-acrobat, vigilante, virtuoso, wild plains outrider.
The high point for me for this chapter is the beastmaster. Finally, we have a well-balanced beastmaster prestige class, and one without spells. The dread pirate makes me want to pull out my copy of The Princess Bride and roll up the Dread Pirate Roberts. One that I found interesting was the Fochlucan Lyrist. At first, it appears as a variant on the mystic theurge for multiclass bard/druids. As someone on EN World's boards pointed out, this is really the 1st edition bard retooled for 3rd edition. Unfortunately, it isn't an option for Dragonlance as you can't multiclass between ambient spellcasting classes and focused spellcasting classes.
All in all, there are some great new prestige class options, some average options, and the low point being the maester. Gnome artificer characters have been done before, and much better I might add. See Magic of Faerun for a better example. The shadowmind is a psionic prestige class that is part psion and part rogue. I'm not sure that this adds that much more than the psychic rogue
Chapter Three is Skills and Feats. Early on, there's a section on expanded skill descriptions. The ability to use old skills in new ways is a plus. There's new feats as well. What I find strange is that the [General] descriptor isn't listed. While one can easily figure this out, it goes against consistency. There are some bardic music feats and some new wild feats, both of which are a treat. Goad is a variation on a kender's taunt ability. Some of the feats are great for multiclass combinations. All in all, some good options, but nothing that strikes me right off.
Chapter Four is Tools and Equipment. This chapter starts with some new weapons. All of which are fairly good, although nothing truly new and exciting. The bright point in this chapter is a section on alchemical items. There's new tools, new instruments, and some new magic items, including jumping caltrops! All in all, pretty standard fare, with some good options for characters.
Chapter Five is Spells. There's a good sidebar in this chapter that shows how to use the Hexblade with this book. It's good to see the cross-book support. There's a healthy dose of new spells for about any spellcasting class out there, save for the blackguard. I find the latter odd since there are assassin spells in this book.
Chapter Six is Organizations. This is one of the bright points of the book, bringing together rules crunch of the prestige class chapter with in-world fluff, giving some organizations to put in your campaign. A nice sidebar goes into emphasizing an organization within a campaign. There's also a section past the sample organizations on building an organization. All in all, an excellent resource.
The Appendix goes into the epic adventurer. While there are some notes on creating epic-level characters, the number one strike of this section is no epic progression of the new base classes in the book. This is especially bad considering that there's a sample epic progression for the dungeon delver.
All in all, this is the best of the Complete class series of books. After all the editing errors in Complete Divine, this is a much better improvement. Glad to see Wizards of the Coast paying better attention. Again, we don't have an index. This book is useful to most classes, and is a good buy.
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