Slaine RPG from Mongoose Publishing

[Erekose]

The artwork is from a whole range of artists but one of them is Simon Bisley. Essentially it is from the comic with some lush full page spreads (if anything there is excess full page artwork!).

The mass combat system is very succinct (only covers a handful of pages). The jist of it is that units are given stats similar to characters and combat is resolved in a very similar way to standard D20. Like the old D&D Battlesystem, PCs are never part of a unit and act alone. I've not used the rules yet but they look pleasingly simple and easily integrate into the existing rules.

 

[Maerdwyn]

Ah - Sounds like, as would make sense now that I think about it, it's a version of the Open Mass Combat System from the Quintessential Fighter book. But. since I don't have that book, that's cool with me

 

[hellbender]

The artwork is from a whole range of artists but one of them is Simon Bisley. Essentially it is from the comic with some lush full page spreads (if anything there is excess full page artwork!).

Thanks much for that note. One can never have too much artwork in my opinion.

hellbender

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

I want this book so bad I can taste it. Too bad it's not available around here... I may be forced to order it online direct from Mongoose.

 

[Emiricol]

Thanks much for that note. One can never have too much artwork in my opinion.

hellbender

Here in Modesto, CA - we don't even have a FLGS ever since the sad excuse for even a bad store, the Gauntlet, did us all the favor of shutting its doors

 

[S'mon]

The mass combat system is the OMCS from quintessential fighter.

There's tons of full-page colour art - too much IMO, and I've criticised this to the author Ian Sturrock over on uk.games.roleplay - the book has lots of info on gritty Celtic roleplaying, and lots of beautiful art, but it's thin and it has no NPC stats at all - not even for typical opponents, certainly no comic-character stats, which are scheduled to appear in supplements. Likewise no stats for elementals, dev-elsm cythrons and other higher-powered opponents, though it does have war dragon stats - not too bright, but very nasty, a 'classic' dragon that could well be used in other lower-fantasy worlds. The thing I missed most was stats for Skull Swords, the soldiers of the evil Drune Lords. For this reason - it's expensive enough it ought to have had space for these things - I'd rate it a 4* product rather than 5*.

 

[Tonguez]

And the barter rules - please tell us about the barter rules.

I really want to use Pigs and chickens as currency

 

[MonkeyBoy]

slaine

Afternoon

I feel a bit smug now.. having had this book for 2 weeks

Its certainly the best looking d20 book I've got, followed closely by the 3 core books and the ravenloft special edition (interior only for core books, exterior only for ravenloft)

Its an interesting piece of D20, in that you realy only just need the PHB, just for the initial character generation and the XP table (the rest is SRDable), and it really does rewrite the d20 system to be very different from dnd3e - all very well done IMO.

Some of the subject matter is quite dark; lots of human sacrifice, and a feat to improve your magical power through torture will not be to everyone's taste - something to be aware of if buying the book when you haven't read slaine...

I bought this book with the intention of using bits of it while creating my new setting, so i've not looked into it as a "whole system", nevertheless, some thoughts on the subjects raised...

Art;
Sexy; best art i've ever seen in an rpg book, but then being a fan of the art of the slaine strips, thats a biased opinion. Nevertheless, the full-page art does an excellent job of giving the reader a view of the subject matter, and also making the book look like a high-value purchase.

Honour System;
Its an honour system, from my first read it looks as good as any other I've read, and suffers from all the problems of any other I've read - like the "full on" bardic reputation system from the old complete handbook. Its fine, and very detailed, but soooo much book keeping, and the ratings are open to "differences of interpretation". Horses for courses, I reckon. It did seem quite well balanced for the setting in mind though.

Warp Spasm;
Hrmm. Well I wasn't so sure why you needed earth power (i.e. "magic points") to go into spasm, or why it dealt damage if you were short. The rules for getting warped are somewhat complex; but then a warp is a big thing in the game, so slowing things down to allow for the full rules, and juicy descriptions, is about right. The higher end of the effects go a fair bit beyond what I recall from slaine's spasms, but there you go. Size increase, heat given off; again I don't recall these specifically from slaine, but they _are_ all in keeping with the wider celtic warrior-rage myths (cuchulain particularly). It all seemed good to me. (good mechanic of warping being out of reach of most, yet enabling a player to decide to play a warped character, btw, via a race for those without the book)

Magic System;
Yessss.
Well, lets just say I won't be using that system (though I am using a magic point system, including the aspects of tapping earth power) I like to keep the ritual sacrifices for the villains IMC, and some of the spells are... less than tasteful (pick your course and choose the horse again, really)
I didn't see anything wrong with the magic from a setting or balance aspect; remembering that this is a setting where there are essentially ONLY druids casting magic...

Core Classes (and Races);
Again; in keeping with the setting. Seem fairly balanced against each other (obviously comparing to the _real_ core classes is nonsensical). The rogue seemed to lose a tiny bit of power, but then some of their skills became exclusive. Bard as a prestige class fits excellently in the whole "wider celtic setting" thing. The thing thats likely to stick in the "standard 3e" player's craw is the no multiclassing rule. But then rule 0 can apply here as much as to anything else... (again; this rule fits the setting, and has a good rationale behind it, but you'd not erode that much flavour by allowing MCing, though late entry to druid sticks out as a no-no to me, but thats a whole cletic-purity conceit - ignore at will!)

To sum up; possibly the most pleasing RPG purchase I've made, though I agree, its a 4, not quite a 5.

 

[MonkeyBoy]

And the barter rules - please tell us about the barter rules.

I really want to use Pigs and chickens as currency

Currency.

Forgot that.
Its another thing that might not sit well with all... (I'm not using the Cumal, certainly...)

In ascending order; chicken, pig, iron bar, Cumal.
Cumal being a female slave - like I said, not to all tastes...

Can't remember if there's a conversion to GP/SP/CP or not, there's an equipment list.

Can't recall rules for barter... Why would you need rules; barter is exchange of dissimilar goods that the two parties agree are of similar value, without recourse to currency. So where do you need rules?

---

Of more interest are the rules for naming weapons, a feat to allow creation of masterwork items (they count as low level magical items in this setting), rules for blunting and bending iron weapons in combat (including straightening them with your teeth!), rules for geases on characters (and advice for the DM on making the players violate their geases), rules for untimely shattering of flint weapons, and some of the best named feats in D20; how much more evocative than "a bit better cleave" is "sundered heads" or "piles of carcasses", a lot IMNSHO

I'd go on, but I'd be in severe danger of just paraphrasing all the rules in the book, and that might cost mongoose sales; which this book richly deserves.

 

[Erekose]

MonkeyBoy - at last someone else with the book able to reply to my original post!

I agree with what you've written - but didn't want to colour any opinions by giving my view first!

My only real pet hate is the warp spasm. I always envisioned it as the equivalent of the barbarian's rage (but with a more visual effect!). The rules for them follow a similar pattern to rage but assign it as a race attribute. I could live with that except the Tribal Warrior can rage as well . . .

In essence I would prefer the "warp spasm/rage" to be either a class ability or a race ability and not a mixture of both.

Ideally I would prefer it as a class ability using the rage mechanic (in keeping with the barbarian) with perhaps a limited cause fear effect (radius and DC increasing with level).

I can only assume that rage and warp spasm were kept separate to enable berserkers to be Tribal Warriors rather than Warped Ones. However, from the relevant myths I don't recall the riastarthe being more powerful than the beserksgangr . . .

However, as I said in my last post the book gives a good basis for a DM to work with.