Thursday, March 10, 2016

Blood and Steel: The Fighter



Blood and Steel: The Fighter is an archetype focused pdf based on the fighter core class plus a few extra goodies.

The archetypes themselves ranges from enabling a specific flavor to enabling a specific tactic. I'll give my impression of each of them. Some of them have the potential for abuse, but really I think that's something the fighter class could use.

Beast Hunter: This archetype has less to do with beasts and more to do with entangling enemies with disabling weapons. It looks fun but less lethal than standard Fighter.

Gun Fighter: Its a fighter with a gun. Imagine a Gunslinger without grit and a bunch of bonus feats. That's pretty much it. Not particularly exciting but as far as I know there is no other non 3pp gun archetypes for fighters so it seems to have a place.

Harpooner: This looks less useful if you're not playing a water campaign, so seems more like an NPC archetype.

Highborn fighter: The main difference that jumps out with this archetype is that you gain 4+int skill ranks, Charisma can replace Dex for AC,CMD and Reflex saves and a butteload of Charisma can potentially boost your damage really high thus enabling Charisma as a potential primary stat.
Iaidoka Master: If you've seen Rurouni Kenshin, you're effectively battousai the manslayer. Its awesome but has on ability that may be too powerful.

Navaja: The highlight of this archetype is the ability to leave weapons inside the enemy to impose penalties. I'd rather see a rogue with this ability but it is a fun and funny ability although I can see how TWF and quickdraw can make this goofy.

Siege Engineer: another NPC archetype by virtue of not getting a free siege engine.
Thrower: A chucking Fighter. It is what it says on the box. Looks fun.

Wicked Wrecker: If you were to play a rugby character who decided to put on spiked armor and go adventuring this is the archetype to use.

Following the archetypes are new combat feats. None of them are really impressive or are gamechangers but they do their job within their niche and none of them feel truly useless.
After that are two new pieces of equipment, the Battle Parasol (?!) and the Harpoon (different from normal harpoon.), then a new mundane shield that sheds light (sadly throwing it does not deal fire damage).

Then there are new magic weapons/wonderous items. Nothing exciting but nothing bad. Mostly enabling the archetypes.

Past this is bonus content; Select entries from Rite Publishing's 101 Magical Armor and Shield Properties and 101 Magical Weapon Properties. (I have one but not the other so it was good advertising on the other.)

Overall I'd recommend Blood and Steel. The archetypes seem fun even though a few seem more at home as NPCs. I definitely see myself using a good chunk of these as a player and a GM. My only real criticism is that for an entire pdf on fighter this seemed rather mundane as opposed to something so gamechanging that you NEED to buy it for all your fighters. I'd give it a 4.5 rounded up to 5 for being a solid product in general.

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