Turns
out, there's not a whole lot more world flavour beyond this, but
there is a bit more. Like Ranged Tactics Toolbox,
Melee Tactics Toolbox
is primarily a book of character options, this time focusing on mêlée
combat. Like its companion,
it doesn't actually spend a great deal of time on the tactics of its
title, but does have scores
of new feats, weapons, magic items, and more. Also
like its companion, it seems to be desperately trying to create new
things for something that doesn't really need any new things added to
it. By itself or in conjunction with Ranged Tactics
Toolbox, Melee Tactics
Toolbox will likely be a useful
resource for players, but in conjunction with the scores of other
books out there, it will likely be mostly forgettable. It's
not a bad book; it just doesn't really stand out.
Melee
Tactics Toolbox is organized in
the same way as Ranged Tactics Toolbox,
with the first half of the book focusing on tactics, feats,
archetypes, and so on, while the second half of the book focuses on
equipment. The introduction gives an overview of the different types
of mêlée combat based on the number of combatants. Specifically,
the types are one against one, one against many, many against one,
and many against many. There is also a sidebar summarising all the
different types of feats in the game, such as combat feats, metamagic
feats, style feats, etc., along with a brief description of each type
of feat. It is quite useful to have all these listed in one place
since there are so many now (16 total) from numerous different
sources.
The
remainder of the first half of the book is divided into two-page
chapters covering different approaches to mêlée combat (though
categorized differently than the types in the introduction, which is
perhaps a touch confusing). Each section begins with some general and
specific or advanced tactics, and then provides a selection of new
character options, such as feats or archetypes. The general tactics
are fairly basic, while specific tactics mostly offer suggested feats
for building characters for specific tasks. Advanced tactics seem to
be more specific suggestions for what to do during mêlée combat,
although the distinction between “specific tactics” and “advanced
tactics” isn't entirely clear. Some specific tactics offer
suggestions on things to do in combat and some advanced tactics offer
feat suggestion, and no chapter contains both specific and advanced
tactics (it's one or the other). It may be possible that they weren't
intended to be different things and the different names got missed in
editing. None of the equivalent chapters in Ranged Tactics Toolbox
have advanced tactics (only general and specific) so that would seem
to point to “advanced” being an error.
The
first of these chapters is “Up Close and Personal”. The general
tactics here focus on weapon choices, while the specific tactics look
at the different ways to engage a foe and deal with environment.
There are also several new feats for close combat, one of which is
Artful Dodge, which is similar to the Dodge feat, except it has
Intelligence as a prerequisite and only works against an opponent
that you are threatening but no one else is. However, it has the
additional benefit of allowing you to substitute Intelligence for
feats with Dexterity as a prerequisite.
The
next chapter is “On the Defensive”, which, as the name suggests,
focuses on ways you can keep from dying during mêlée combat. There
are three new feats in this chapter and a cavalier archetype, the
castellan. This archetype substitutes several defensive abilities for
the cavalier's mount and charge abilities.
The
next chapter, “Mass Melee”, focuses on combats with multiple
people on each side. This chapter has one of the shortest tactics
sections (half a page compared to the previous chapters having nearly
a full page), but it does have several new feats, a new bardic
masterpiece, and a new fighter archetype, the drill sergeant. Of the
five new feats, three are teamwork feats that give additional
benefits to using the aid another action in mêlée. While they are
somewhat interesting, they seem quite limited in how often they'll
actually be useful. The remaining two feats are more interesting.
Phalanx Formation makes your allies not provide soft cover when you
use a reach weapon. Stick Together is another teamwork feat that
allows you to move as an immediate action when an ally with the feat
also moves.
The
next chapter, “Unarmed and Dangerous” focuses on unarmed combat.
The tactics primarily offer advice to help avoid being disarmed and
what to do if you are disarmed (such as recovering your weapon and
investing in armour spikes). It also has six new style feats for two
new styles: cudgeler syle and kraken style. The first focuses on
dealing nonlethal damage with weapons and the second uses grappling
to apply crushing holds to your enemies. There is also a bloodrager
archetype, the bloody-knuckled rowdy.
The
first half of the book concludes with “Melee in a Pinch”, which
focuses on how to handle combats you're not prepared for. This
chapter has nine new feats (the largest selection of feats in the
book), though a couple of them are quite situational, reducing their
usefulness. Aquatic Combatant and Aquatic Spell could be quite useful
in an aquatic campaign, but Grappled Caster (which provides a +4
bonus to concentration checks to cast spells while grappled) will
really only be useful if you play a caster who happens to get
grappled frequently. The chapter also has a new rogue archetype, the
makeshift scrapper.
The
centre two pages of the book cover the “Anatomy of Melee Weapons”.
The first page shows the relative sizes of different kinds of swords,
while the second page has diagrams of an axe, a mace, and a sword.
These two pages are similar in style to the centre two pages of
Ranged Tactics Toolbox, except they are considerably more
detailed. They add a nice flavourful touch to the game.
The
second half of the book contains several chapters on equipment. There
are new weapons, tools, and armour—some magical and some not—and
new armour and weapon special abilities. There are also some new
wondrous items that aid in mêlée combat, as well as a selection of
new spells. Overall, there is a lot to choose from in these fourteen
pages, some of it useful, some of it less so. A few items add some
nice colour to the game. I doubt a whole lot of PCs will rush out to
purchase an acrobat's pillar (a device for honing your Acrobatics
skill), but its existence makes for a nice touch of flavour that GMs
can place in the background of training rooms. I think my favourite
item in the book is the pirate's arm, which appears to be a
stone arm broken off a statue. It works like a +1 seaborne
greatclub, but also provides bonuses for escaping grapples. I
like it for its just plain utter bizarreness.
The
inside back cover of the book contains an overview of the actions you
can take during combat, including a table showing what type of action
(standard, swift, free, etc.) each one is. It makes a useful resource
for players during the game.
On
the whole, Melee
Tactics Toolbox,
is a decent book. It has quite a few things in it that will be useful
for mêlée-oriented characters. However, much like its companion,
Ranged Tactics
Toolbox,
there's not much about these options that stand out amidst the sea of
options already available in the game. I do find it particularly
telling that almost none of the feats suggested in the tactics
sections are feats from this book. So while this book does have its
uses, it's also mostly skippable.
No comments:
Post a Comment