Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I just recently bought and read this book with the aim of adding some watery adventures to my (typically) land-based adventures.

I was not disappointed. I'm only 2/3 way through this book at this time, but felt compelled to write a review because I just WANT TO RUN A WATERY CAMPAIGN now! :)

The book details three underwater races and provides ideas on how their cultures interact with each other and the land-based races. There are prestige classes, spells, etc. as with other supplements, and I found these ones a nice fit with the context of the book -- especially the Reef Warrior for added mystique. There's also the ships (as detailed in other reviews) and a few rockin' adventure ideas/hooks.

I highly recommend this book. It beats many of the WOTC-published books I've purchased in terms of value & aid to my campaign.

This is truly an outstanding supplement for those planning on running adventures on the high seas. As I went through this book, I kept asking myself "Why isn't this in Stormwrack?" For those that aren't aware, "Stormwrack" is the official D&D supplement covering adventures in Aquatic environments.

Don't get me wrong, the material in Stormwrack is good. I'd give it 4 stars as well. However, there is a TON of great stuff in here that Stormwrack doesn't mention. For example, how are skills affected underwater? There are some really good adjustments DM's should consider to certain skills when used underwater...most notably things like Listen, Spot, and so on.

There are also some good and reasonable feats for use in aquatic environments, some nifty spells, and really tons of other material that I would very nearly deem "essential" for those running campaigns aboard ships or under the waves. Again, it makes one wonder why Wizards of the Coast didn't have some sort of similar material in Stormwrack.

I should also add that the book is good quality, and that the art and so on are good quality as well. This isn't a cheap supplement of low quality, like some OGL stuff tends to occasionally be. This won't fall apart on you. I will mention however, that when I ordered it anyway, Amazon had it on 6-8 week backorder, so make sure you check availability before buying it here. If it's not available here, I'm sure you can find it elsewhere on the net.

I highly recommend this product in addition to Stormwrack, for those who are planning to play or run games where the Sea is a primary setting location.

I love running and playing sea adventures - this is one of the best books I've bought that deals with the sea and I have bought every one that comes out just in case something new and exciting is added or made easier. If you want to run sea adventures - this is your book.

Seafarer's Handbook: Sourcebook of Ships, Oceans, and the Beasts Therein is a great book on pirates! A must for all pirate buffs!