Seafarer's Handbook: Sourcebook of Ships, Oceans, and the Beasts Therein (Legends & Lairs, d20 System) [Hardcover]

Fantasy Flight Staff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2002

A complete guide to nautical adventuring in the d20 System. The Seafarer's Handbook details nautical combat, dangers of the deep, gives ideas for adventures on the high seas, in port, and below the waters.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1589940555
• ISBN-13: 978-1589940550
• Product Dimensions: 11.5 x 8.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,404,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Add Seagoing Adventure to your 3E D&D Game, February 20, 2002

By 

Scott Kongable (Center Point, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seafarer's Handbook: Sourcebook of Ships, Oceans, and the Beasts Therein (Legends & Lairs, d20 System) (Hardcover)

The Seafarer's Handbook is the third book of Fantasy Flight's Legends and Lairs Core Rulebooks (the other two are Mythic Races and Traps and Treachery). Like their first two books, this one is high quality construction with excellent writing and content. The graphics are good, not great, but they do adequately convey the ideas. The book integrates very well with the Player's Handbook and Dungeonmaster's Guide and expands on aquatic topics covered in those books. There are six chapters covering the following; 1) Seafaring Adventures, 2) Seafaring Campaigns, 3) Undersea Adventures, 4) Ship Construction, 5) Ship Designs, and 6) Ship Combat. This book clearly establishes Fantasy Flight as one of the top d20 material producers.

Chapters 1-3 provide extensive material to describe and design the world that borders on or is under the sea. Chapter 1 covers three aquatic races that could be encountered while travelling by ship. In addition, it describes the use of skills and feats while underwater and provides some new feats. Also, it provides lists and descriptions of new equipment, spells, and magic items with an aquatic focus. Lastly it expands on the underwater combat rules. Chapter 2 includes an extensive example of a coastal city, while Chapter 3 provides information about the underwater environment and a template to create aquatic versions of monsters.

The greatest value of the book starts in the final three chapters. The chapter on ship construction is very detailed without being overly burdensome. It provides enough flexibility to truly personalize your campaign, but, also provides basic examples of construction, propulsion, and weaponry. Chapter 5 contains 20 ship design ranging from the basic (non-fantasy, more historic) to exotic (submarines, marine propulsion) ships. The final chapter presents a new combat system for seagoing combat. In this case they have developed a system that is very flexible and provides a wide range of options without being cumbersome. It includes maneuvering, shipboard artillery, ramming, boarding, fire, and weather conditions. For each section, they provide a gameplay example of the concepts just presented.

In summary, the Seafarer's Handbook provides a wealth of information to expand on material just touched on by the Wizards of the Coast core rulebooks. It is a great value for the money.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Realistic Seafaring Supplement, November 8, 2002

By 

S. Donohue "Geekier than I want to be." (Allen Park, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seafarer's Handbook: Sourcebook of Ships, Oceans, and the Beasts Therein (Legends & Lairs, d20 System) (Hardcover)

Calling it realistic may be a stretch since I'm no expert on wooden ships, but I would say that it's more realistic than any of the 3rd edition competitors I've seen.
This is mostly a book for lovers of "crunchy bits". It has lots of good rules for expanding your characters into aquatic adventures and a lot of rules for building your own ships. I think it may be the best D&D sailing supplement either, even knocking out the venerable Of Ships and the Sea.
If you've ever thought you'd like to try a Pirates or Treasure Island campaign, then this is the book for you. The only moderate disappointment is the lack of color illustrations, but the artwork is mostly very good and none of it is bad.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sailing to new horizons, July 19, 2002

By 

"dick_hille" (Bodegraven Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seafarer's Handbook: Sourcebook of Ships, Oceans, and the Beasts Therein (Legends & Lairs, d20 System) (Hardcover)

A great resources if you want to add a splash of water to your campaing or want to sail away from the adventure your DM wants to plunge you in.

Published under the open gaming license, this book fits in great with the WOTC rules for D20 3rd edition D&D. Giving you a couple of new races, that I would never use for a PC, but that can be very cool NPC's, both supporting and opposing the players.
The new feats and skills fit in great with the thema of the book.

The best part for me personaly is the chapter about ship construction and the chapter with the already designed ships. There is also a chapter concerned with moving and fighting ship based. The fighting part is realy detailed and nice, but I am afraid I will nearly never use it. That could just be personal, if you want to have ships fight, the rules do make sense and seem very balanced.

The only reason I did not rate this a 5 star book is the fact that it is in black&white. Besides that, the artwork is good quality and so is the binding of the book.