The New Argonauts

[Messageboard Golem]

This book by Sean K Reynolds gives you everything you need to run a campaign in mythic Greece. Rather than cramming dwarves, paladins, and otyughs into a Greek setting, The New Argonauts presents a low-magic campaign (but still with a touch of the fantastic and divine) where the focus is on Greek-style heroes, their battles against strange monsters, and great quests. This book gives insights on how a low-magic campaign affects character concepts and game balance, an overview of Greek culture, history, the Olympian pantheon, the original Olympic Games, and advice on running a mythic Greek campaign. Gamers who love crunchy bits can find new feats and spells, a set of heroic powers derived from godly bloodlines, a campaign-themed spellcasting class, simple magic items based on parts from mythic monsters, and over thirty monsters drawn from the Greek myths (many rewritten from the core version to suit a low-magic campaign).

 

[John Cooper]

The New Argonauts: d20 Adventure in Mythic Greece
By Sean K. Reynolds
Sean K. Reynolds Games product number SKR002
64 pages, $7.00 (discounted to $5.00 through November 15)

I've been a fan of Sean K. Reynolds' work for many years now, so when he emailed me to ask if I'd be interested in reviewing his New Argonauts campaign PDF, I jumped at the chance. As expected, Sean covers the topic with his characteristic attention to balanced rules detail.

The cover art is by Gerald Lee, and consists of multiple panels of drawings, much like a comic book page. In the center, there's Scylla, a mythological creature with a human upper torso and a lower body composed of wolf-headed snakes. Below her is a drawing of the New Argo, the eponymous sailed rowing vessel used by the characters in Sean's playtest campaign. (Plus, if you look closely, you can see Scylla's silhouette just ahead of the ship - the adventurers are in for a fight!) These two drawings are flanked on either side by a typical Greek soldier in frilled helmet, armor (complete with skirt!), and holding a shield. The color scheme is rather nice, with predominant dark reds and browns along the edges (the soldiers and the ship) contrasting nicely with the flesh tones and greens of Scylla in the center.

The interior artwork consists of 2 maps and 39 photos and illustrations, many of them of vases, statuary, pottery, and the like, each depicting scenes from Greek mythology. This is a very nice approach, making it look more authentic. Of course, as a result of the "traditional Greek" approach, there's quite a bit of male nudity, but nothing worse than you'd see in a classical museum and nothing distasteful (no excited satyrs, for example). There's also a decorative Greek style border running along the bottom of each page, which is very appropriate given the theme of the PDF. The maps aren't as good as they could be, however: one has two different shades of yellow to represent land and water, and another has yellow land areas and white water areas; neither color scheme makes for easy reading. In addition, the map on page 2 has two outer edges, a "jagged edge" that makes it look like the map is a ripped remnant of a larger map, and a rigid border around that to set it apart from the rest of the page. The end result, however, makes the land masses that reach the edge of the "jagged edge" border look like islands. It might have been better to do away with the "ripped map" border altogether.

The New Argonauts is laid out as follows:

• Introduction: A one-page introduction by the author explaining what this PDF covers (and just as important, what it doesn't cover).
• Characters: Information on available Races (human only, although there's the option to be descended from a god or titan), Classes (barbarian, fighter, and rogue are the only ones available from the Player's Handbook, although the aristocrat, commoner, expert, and warrior from the Dungeon Master's Guide are also available, but mostly as NPCs), Skills (changes from the standard d20 rules), Feats (both changes to existing feats and 15 new feats), a new Character class (the Hellenic Sorceress, patterned after Medea and Circe of Greek mythology), information on Bloodlines (powers derived from having a god or titan as an ancestor), and Equipment available.
• Variant Rules: Appropriate changes to the standard rules for a New Argonauts campaign, including continuing poison damage, donations to the gods and godly intervention, and slower dying.
• Magic: 15 new and modified spells and 10 magic items.
• Culture: An overview of Greek culture, covering such topics as the City-States, Wealth, Women, Marriage and Children, Foreigners, Slaves, Work, Religion, Homosexuality, Athletics, and the Ancient Olympics.
• Deities: Sections on Greek Prehistory, Olympian Gods and Titans (including two handy family tree diagrams), and Olympian Symbology.
• History: Sections on the Bronze Age, the Minoans, the Mycenaeans, the Dark Ages, and the Archaic Age.
• Running the Campaign: Mythic Elements, Wealth, Rewards, and Starting Level, and an overview of the playtesting campaign (including a brief description of the events that occurred during each gaming session).
• Monsters: 38 monsters, many of them new but others variations on the creatures appearing in the Monster Manual.

Overall impressions first: I think Sean did a great job of providing the reader pretty much everything he needs to know to run a successful campaign based on the legends and mythology of ancient Greece. Sean's many years as an RPG designer give him the expertise needed to tinker with the standard d20 rules just right to capture the feel of ancient Greece while still staying close to the standard d20 rules that everyone's used to, yet he doesn't hesitate to trim off many parts of the "normal" d20 rules that wouldn't apply to this type of campaign setting. For example, he has no problems decreeing that there simply are no clerics, druids, sorcerers, or wizards - the standard magic-using classes of the Player's Handbook. However, he not only creates an appropriate spell-using class for the campaign (the Hellenic Sorceress), he also tweaks the existing rules to take into account the sudden loss of such standard fantasy tropes as healing spells. I think Sean did an excellent job in modifying the rules (not only in excising those that weren't appropriate for the "feel" of an ancient Greek campaign, but in creating new rules to cover things that need to be taken into consideration in such a campaign). For example, the fact that all fighters (and nearly all PCs in this campaign will be fighters) gain Combat Expertise as a bonus feat (allowing them to raise their ACs when necessary) helps alleviate the lack of magical healing, as does adding Heal as a class skill to fighters and rogues. Best of all, Sean scatters "Behind the Scenes" boxed text throughout the PDF when necessary, so the reader can see the reasoning behind making such changes.

Likewise, the changes made to feats, skills, and spells are all flavorful and well thought out, although I did notice a couple of discrepancies between the spell levels as described in the Hellenic Sorceress spell list and the spell stats themselves. The bloodlines concept is a great one, and I appreciate the fact that Sean came up with three different levels of bloodline powers (minor, lesser, and greater), so that you can play at different power levels (plus, it only makes sense that Zeus' son born of a mortal woman would be more powerful than, say, someone whose great-great-grandfather was a titan). The variant rules not only make sense for a New Argonauts campaign, but could easily be incorporated into a standard D&D campaign. (In fact, that holds true of much of this PDF; even many of the spells, which were specifically written for the Hellenic Sorceress class, include appropriate "Sor/Wiz" spell levels for those wishing to use them in a standard D&D campaign.) The chapters on Greek culture, deities, and history give the DM enough of a background to make his campaign seem realistic; those seeking more information have plenty of material at the local library, so I was pleased to see Sean concentrate mostly on the game portion of the campaign setting, instead of spending too much time on things easily available elsewhere. Finally, it was nice to see the breakdown of each playtest game session, not only to see one possible string of adventures but also because sometimes a great example can be more inspiring than a string of possible suggestions. (It was also a nice touch to use the actual playtesters and their characters as examples whenever a particular topic needed further explanation.) I also enjoyed the fact that Sean "advanced" the timeline of the ancient Greek myths somewhat; Cerberus (the three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades, the land of the dead) has already been slain by another band of heroes, but his progeny live on in the form of Cerberean Hounds.

The two biggest drawbacks to The New Argonauts probably won't come as a surprise to anyone who's read several of my previous reviews: proofreading/editing and monster stats. As far as the proofreading and editing goes, there are two proofreaders listed (Jon Norbert Hartmann and Sean's own sister, Keri Reynolds - nice to see the family helping out!), and Brian Cortijo did the editing, yet quite a few mistakes got past all three (all four, if you count Sean). I noticed several instances of missing words, extra words, missing or incorrect punctuation, typos, incorrect alphabetization and capitalization, and the like; nothing drastic enough to make the section incomprehensible, just disappointing to see. There was one major editing gaffe, however: an entire paragraph about the Pentathlon apparently got covered by the illustration at the bottom of page 30 - only the last two lines survived intact, at the top of the second column.

Absolutely correct monster stats are at the top of my list, however, and I was surprised to see so many mistakes in this area from a guy with as strong an RPG background as Sean has. Many of the creatures have 3.0 terminology ("Face/Reach" instead of "Space/Reach"), and for some reason Sean often uses "thrown" instead of "ranged" when describing a ranged attack (he did this quite often in his Template Troves Volume 1, as well). I recommend making the following changes:

• p. 45, Aeetes' Dragon: Bite damage should be 1d8+8, not 1d8+12 (you don't get the 1.5 times Str bonus unless it's your only attack). Also, why can't the dragon bite AND use its claws as a Full attack?
  
• p. 45, Alkinous' Hounds: "Track B" should have the "B" in superscript, denoting it as a bonus feat. The "Trip" paragraph refers to the hound as a "wolf" once (no doubt this is a copy-and-paste error). There's no need for the "Tactics: -" line; just delete it if you aren't going to include a Tactics section.
  
• p. 46, Antaeus: He has 6 HD, yet he has 5 feats - two of these should either be dropped or annotated as bonus feats. Also, since Toughness grants +5 hp instead of +3 hp in a New Argonauts campaign (it's one of the listed changes to the way feats work), HD should be 6d8+35, not 6d8+33, and his average hit points would then be 62, not 60.
  
• p. 47, Bacchae: "Face/Reach 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft." should be "Space/Reach 5 ft./5 ft."
  
• p. 49, Cerberean Hound: Tail spray attack should be at +6 ranged, not +1 (+6 BAB, -1 size, +1 Dex). (+1 ranged is correct for Full Attack, however.)
  
• p. 50, Charon: "Face/Reach 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft." should be "Space/Reach 5 ft./5 ft."
  
• p. 51, Cyclopes, Greater: If AC is 17, then flat-footed AC should be 17, not 18 (you don't disregard a negative Dexterity modifier when flat-footed).
  
• p. 52, Erinyes: Poison Fortitude save should be DC 15, not DC 10 (10 + 1/2 creature's HD + Constitution modifier, or in this case 10 + 3 + 2). Also, with Str 14 and Dex 14, Weapon Finesse isn't doing them any good; replace it with a more appropriate feat.
  
• p. 52, Euryale, female gorgon (medusa): Snakes attack should be at +8 melee, not +3 (+6 BAB, +2 Dex due to Weapon Finesse). (+3 melee is correct for the Full Attack, however.) Petrifying Gaze Fortitude save should be DC 14, not DC 13 (10 + 3 + 1). Poison Fortitude save should be DC 14, not DC 16 (10 + 3 + 1).
  
• p. 53, False Oracle Guards (male human War2): Base Attack should be +2, not +1. Grapple should be +3, not +2 (+2 BAB, +1 Str). Longsword attacks should be at +4 melee, not +2 (+2 BAB, +1 Str, +1 Weapon Focus). As for the javelin attacks, "+1 thrown" should be "+2 ranged" (+2 BAB) (not sure why the different terminology is being used, but Template Troves Volume 1 had the same odd terminology as well). "Face/Reach 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft." should be "Space/Reach 5 ft./5 ft."
  
• p. 54, Geryon: Javelin attacks should be at +6 ranged, not +11 thrown (+7 BAB, -1 size, +0 Dex). "Face/Reach 5 ft. by 5 ft./10 ft." should be "Space/Reach 5 ft./10 ft."
  
• p. 54, Greek Noble (male human Ari2): "Face/Reach 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft." should be "Space/Reach 5 ft./5 ft."
  
• p. 54, Greek Officer (male human Ftr4): With HD 4d10+8, average hit points should be 30, not 17. Base Attack should be +4, not +3. Grapple should be +6, not +5 (+4 BAB, +2 Str). Masterwork longsword attacks should be at +8 melee, not +6 (+4 BAB, +2 Str, +1 masterwork bonus, +1 Weapon Focus). Halfspear attacks should be at +6 melee, not +5 (+4 BAB, +2 Str). Javelin attacks should be at +6 ranged, not +5 thrown (+4 BAB, +2 Dex). "Face/Reach 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft." should be "Space/Reach 5 ft./5 ft."
  
• p. 55, Greek Soldier (male human Ftr2): With HD 2d10+2, average hit points should be 13, not 17. Base Attack should be +2, not +1. Grapple should be +4, not +2 (+2 BAB, +2 Str). Longsword attacks should be at +5 melee, not +3 (+2 BAB, +2 Str, +1 Weapon Focus). Shortspear attacks should be at +4 melee, not +3 (+2 BAB, +2 Str). Javelin attacks should be at +4 ranged, not +3 thrown (+2 BAB, +2 Dex). "Face/Reach 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft." should be "Space/Reach 5 ft./5 ft."
  
• p. 55, Hecatoncheire: Rock attacks should be at +14 ranged, not +26 thrown (+14 BAB, -2 size, +2 Dex).
  
• p. 58, Oracle at Delphi (female human Exp6): "Face/Reach 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft." should be "Space/Reach 5 ft./5 ft."
  
• p. 61, Sthenno, female gorgon (medusa): Snake attacks should be at +8 melee, not +3 (+6 BAB, -1 size, +3 Dex due to Weapon Finesse). (+3 melee is correct as a Full Attack, however.) Gaze Fortitude save should be DC 15, not DC 13 (10 + 3 + 2).
  
• p. 61, Stymphalian Bird: Feather attacks should be "+4 ranged" instead of "+4 thrown."
  
• p. 61, Talos: Rock attacks should be "+8 ranged" instead of "+8 thrown."

If you note, despite the fact that there are quite a lot of individual entries on that list, many of them are just trivial things like "Face" instead of "Space" which should be pretty easy to ignore. Still, it's kind of irritating to see so many things wrong, especially by a guy who has really impressed me in the past with his RPG work. Fortunately, one of the PDF's inherent advantages over printed products is the ease with which mistakes can be fixed. I emailed Sean a detailed list of the errors I found, so hopefully before too long those errors won't even be a consideration.

I should also point out that Sean's already got a web enhancement ready for download at his site (www.seankreynolds.com), "The New Olympians," written by Brian Cortijo, who edited The New Argonauts. (Interesting enough, I didn't find any proofreading/editing mistakes in the web enhancement.) It deals with a possible alternate New Argonauts campaign, where Zeus has been overthrown by his own deific offspring (much like he took the throne of Olympus from his own father, Cronus, who in turn took it from his father, Uranos). It has a reshuffling of the roles of the new gods and goddesses in power, and opens the way for a new class, the Hellenic Cleric. There's also plenty of background material about the New Argonauts on Sean's website; I highly recommend it for those who are interested.

All in all, I give The New Argonauts a rating of "4 (Good)." The material itself is for the most part outstanding (with the exception of a good chunk of the monster stats), and only the proofreading/editing job, the substandard maps, and a couple of pages that are half white space help to bring it down from a "5 (Superb)." I would recommend the PDF to anyone interested in running a fantasy campaign based in ancient Greece, or really to anyone looking for some interesting rules variants for their own homebrew D&D game - there's plenty of pilferable material in here.

 

[Crothian]

New Argonauts

The age of heroes has swerved as inspiration to many gamers for years. The old stories of the Greek gods and the heroes that challenged and served them still resonate today. There have been a few good products that covers this but the Argonauts is easily one of the best that has.

The Argonauts is a new PDF by Sean K Reyonlds. It is a sixty five page PDF that arrives in a zip file a little over two megs in size. The book has great classic al art from the Greek Ages. It is well laid out and book marked.

The book starts of with a great section detailing what the book is and what the book is not. The book is an aid to help play in the era of Greek heroes and it is not a historically heavy or one hundred percent accurate book. It is designed for role playing in the d20 rules but the ideas could be used in other systems with a lot of help. The book is designed for an Argonauts like campaign with enough material for about a dozen or so sessions.

The book starts with a good explanation of what type of characters are suitable for this setting. It is a setting where magic is a lot different and mostly weaker and the heroes are more often fighter and rogue types. There is only one spell casting class here and that is the new Hellenic Sorcerer. While the class selection is a lot more limited there area few new feats that really add definition to a character. The old bard class is not suitable since it has a lot of spell casting so instead any character can take the Orphean Music feat. There are feats for clerics and healers as well. The few feats all add a great addition to the game and make the characters fit the roles they want with out over balancing the campaign as many spell casters can.

The new class the Hellenic sorceress is a little like the Sorcerer of the Players Handbook. They do get more hit points and more skill points. But they have a much smaller list of spells they can learn and their spells go up to only fifth level. They learn higher level spell slots and can slowly increase the DC of known spells. Their casting procession is very much like the PHB class.

Another great option they have for the characters are bloodlines of the gods. They add a little power to the character and are not as powerful as the ones seen in Unearthed Arcana. These only add a single ability though there are minor, lesser, and major bloodlines. The minor ones give basically skill focus to two of the skills listed. Each god has a small selection of skills. The Lesser ones grant +2 to one of the attributes listed for each god. And the greater ones are either a small bonus or a spell that can be cast once a day.

There are a few rule variants that are suggested to help get the feeling of this world verse the more traditional ones. For instance there are some great ways to make poison linger and be a bit more deadly. There are rules for donations to a church and the effect that can have when a character requests intervention from his god or goddess. All these rules add a nice layer to the game and make the game a bit different and add a lot of feel for the setting. I especially like the donations and intervention rules. They are simple to use and make donating seem more attractive to players.

There are some new and modified spells introduced. Again it is a little lower magic power wise and the new spells reflect that. My favorite would have to be Dragon Chariot. It summons a chariot pulled by dragons to carry you where you want. The new magical items are also very much on par with the setting. There are a few new elixirs and items from creatures like boars and hydras.

There is a lot of great culture information. I think this might be the best chapter and easiest to use by anyone. This information can be applied to one’s own campaign world if one would like a country or city state to have a Greek feeling. The book does not shy away from slaves or homosexuality either. They are presented as a matter of fact as the topics were in the times of the Greeks. The gods are also given a lot of nice detail. Many are briefly explained and there are some nice diagrams showing the relationship between the god sand the titans. The culture section really concludes with a nice over view of the history and a few surrounding cultures.

Running the campaign is another area that can easily be used by people not wanting a purely Greek campaign. It has as some great ideas from different encounters and events that can really add to a game like the use of an oracle, travels to far lands, interesting arrivals of people, etc. It really has a lot of good information that should be able to bring out the creativity in many DMs. The campaign itself is laid out in nine sessions over views but they can easily be expanded on and added to.

There area lot of really good monsters presented here but they are a little weak for at traditional game since the power levels are a bit reduced. So, while they can easily be used outside the setting, I would increase their power a bit in places.

Overall this is a very strong book that covers the Greeks well. I think adding to it other books like OGL Ancients and Relics and Rituals Olympus will work very well. The R&R Olympus book will work better then Ancients though.