Before I start this review I feel there are a few things I should make clear. First of all, I like 3rd Ed. D&D and if you read this review I take it that you do too (or at least to some degree).
Secondly, everything stated in this review is very much IMHO. It is my belief that no review can be one hundred percent objective and while I will try to get all of the facts right, the rest is just my opinion. Please take it as such.
Thirdly, I own the electronic versions of the old AD&D class books and I mostly do not like them. While some of the information in them like the kits, equipment, spells and some of the role-playing advise were useful, the rest of the content consisted of mostly extra rules that bogged down an already inelegant system. Also, some of the books really tore at what little balance their was in AD&D, by inflating weapon damage, spell damage and character powers.
And finally, English is not my first language, so expect spelling and grammatical errors.
Okay, that's enough of a rant already. Let's get down to the meat of this review.
Fysical appearance
The book is a 96 page, 8 3/8 inch by 10 3/4 inch paperback; the same size used for all the D&D paperback products. It features a full color cover piece done by Jeff Easley, showing three of the standard characters (Tordek, Ember and Regdar) ready to attack an undisplayed threat.
The layout of the book is done identical to that found in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. This means that the margins are about 1 1/2 inch wide and the font used is a little bigger than the one used in the core books (I would guesstimate 11 or maybe 12 points). Important information is often put into sidebars. Also the current chapter is listed at the top of every page, which is something that I like as it enables me to quickly search for a chapter.
While the book doesn't have an index, it does have an excellent table of contents and a listing of every table in the book.
Art is plentiful (on average one piece of art per two pages, with the average piece about a quarter of a page in size) and usually appropriate to the text. All of it is quality black and white art done by Dennis Cramer.
The last chapter contains several page-sized maps done by Dennis Kauth. All of them are very clear and appropriate.
While I did encounted a few spelling errors, they were not of great importance.
The contents
The first four pages of the book are used for the credits, the table of contents, a useful listing of all the tables in the book, the introduction, a "What this book is and what it is not" section and a "How to use this book" section. All of these are what one would expect them to be and serve their purpose without using up too much space.
Next are the five chapters of the book. I will discuss them one by one.
Chapter 1: Feats and Skills
The first five pages of this chapter are taken by a listing of 31 new feats. Most of these are interesting without being too weak or too powerful. Good examples of this are the Improved Sunder feat (you do double damage when striking an opponent's weapon) or the Blindsight, 5 foot radius feat.
There are however also some poorly thought out feats like Dirty Fighting, that lets you add another 1d4 damage to a successful unarmed attack, but requires the full attack action. This means that at low level you get a free extra 1d4 damage, which is quite a lot (remember, a first level wizard or sorcerer only has 4 hp con modifier). And at high level this feat is pretty useless since it requires the full attack action, requiring monks (who are the most likely characters to have this feat) to forfeit all those extra attacks to use this feat.
There are also some feats that I think were designed with just fighters and monks in mind. Most notably the feats Eyes in the Back of your Head and Expert Tactician. Both are perfectly good feats when applied to just fighters and monks, but become problematic when applied to rogues.
Eyes in the Back of your Head removes the attack bonus opponents receive for flanking you. Does this also mean that rogues cannot use their sneak attack ability when flanking you? No mention whatsoever is made about it.
Expert Tactician gives the character a free partial action whenever her opponent is denied his dexterity bonus to AC. No problem when the character with the feat is a fighter or monk, but when she's a rogue, this means that she can make an extra sneak attack at her highest to-attack bonus. Ouch! A bit too powerful if you ask me.
Another thing that bothered me was that some feats have prerequisites of x levels of monk. This would mean that no class, even classes that are an awful lot like monks can ever have this feat. Now, I may sound picky here, but with this whole d20 thing such a class might very easily be created and even Dragon very specifically recommended against prerequisites like these in their excellent article about designing new feats.
The last two pages of this chapter list a few new knowledge skills and a few examples of new uses of the skills Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information and Sense Motive. Nothing earthshaking here.
Chapter 2: Prestige Classes
At 27 pages this is the largest chapter in the book. Eighteen brand new prestige classes and one from Dragon Magazine (the Duelist) are listed here.
I found all of them to be pretty interesting. Some like the Ninja of the Crescent Moon are just cool, the Drunken Master is great fun and the Master of Chains will make for an excellent villain.
My only problem with this chapter is that many of the prestige classes seem awfully powerful compared to the standard classes. However, I haven't had the opportunity to playtest them all and they seem about on par with for instance the Shadowdancer and the Arcane Archer in the DMG, so this may be just me. At least most of the prestige classes have some kind of an organization tied to them, so it is possible to keep some control over all to powerful characters, should the need arise.
All in all, this is one of my favorite chapters and definitely one that will get most players excited.
Chapter 3: Worldly Matters
The first half of this 12 page long chapter has some information on how fighters and monks fit into the game world and which races are likely to become fighters or monks and for which reasons. This information is pretty good, though not earthshaking.
The second half details some organizations from the Greyhawk campaign setting and gives advise how to use them (Most of these organizations have a prestige class from the previous chapter tied to them BTW). For DMs running a Greyhawk campaign this will obviously be of interest, but even for DMs who don't these organizations will likely be interesting, as they are easy to port into another setting.
Chapter 4: The Game within the Game
The 17 pages of this chapter are by far the most technical in the book. This chapter concerns itself with several things. Firstly, it has some information about how you can make your fighter or monk more distinct without writing up a new class.
Secondly, it has a whole lot of information on how to maximize your character, up to a table detailing when a 2 axe is statistically better then a 1 keen axe.
Thirdly it has detailed examples of mounted combat and a duel. And finally it has a few rules variants that thankfully are just that: not extra rules to bog down the system or remove all balance, no nonsensical new mechanics, but just a few optional variants to some rules. Phew...
I think this chapter is by far the most controversial in the book. Many people will probably be upset by the section about maximizing a character (though the information in it is thankfully mostly just common sense advise on how to choose your feats, etc.) and others will think of the detailed combat examples as wasted space.
Personally I don't think this chapter is all to bad. However, of all the chapters in the book, this one reminds me most of those old AD&D class books.
Chapter 5: Tools of the Trade
The final 26 pages of the book are filled with all kinds of goodies that players can spend their hard-earned gold pieces on.
The first section of this chapter is a listing of new exotic weapons (plus one from Dragon Magazine: the halfling skiprock). Most of these are imaginative new weapons that are just slightly better than normal ones (which is fair enough since you need to give up a feat in order to use them properly).
There are however a few ones that are way to powerful for my tastes. Most notably among these is the orc shotput. Essentially an iron ball the size of a grapefruit that is thrown at its target, this weapon does 2d6 damage and has a threat range of 19-20/x3. This means that it does more friggin' damage than ANY non-magical weapon in the core books! Yes, that includes the greatsword (2d6 damage but with a threat range of 19-20/x2). And to top it off it can be thrown just as far as a dagger. No way that thing is getting in my campaign in its present form.
Next is a short section that lists a bunch of weapons like katanas, claymores and stilletos and gives their equivalents (for instance, a katana is equivalent to a masterwork bastard sword). Useful stuff as it adds 26 new weapons to the game in less than half a page.
The next section is a list of new magical items (one of which, the Shatterspike, was taken from the Sunless Citadel module). Overall a decent section with some interesting stuff (i.e. a "Merciful" weapon that on commands deals an extra 1d6 damage, but all damage it deals is subdual) and some bad stuff (i.e. the Bow of True Arrows costs only 4000 gp, but can cast the powerful "True Strike" spell an infinite number of times and there's also a "Sure Striking" power which costs only as much as a 1 bonus, but enables the weapon to harm creatures with damage reduction as if it were of 5 enchantment). This section however didn't make me quite as enthusiastic as the section on magical items in the DMG made me.
This section is followed by a section on vehicles that gives details on chariots (including chariot specific feats) and the Halfling War-Wagon. Good stuff this, though I don't understand why the chariot feats get their own section heading in the middle of another section (after the feats the vehicle section just continues).
Finally there is a section on towers, keeps and castles. There are several buildings here, ranging from towers to monasteries and complete castles. Every building gets a pretty detailed description and is accompanied by a map. So far, so good, but again there are a few problems. The maps are sometimes several pages from the description of the relevant building and there are several major errors in the stats for the guards, etc. Especially their skills are complete nonsense. Many of them have way too many skillpoints and some even have negative ranks in skills!
Another minor problem I had was that the Gnome Bridge Keep and Elven Canopy Tower are tactically unsound, but that might just be me.
All in all, this is a decent chapter, but it's far from perfect. There is some really great stuff here, but also quite a bit of junk and there are several errors.
Conclusion
Overall I consider Sword and Fist to be a decent book that accomplishes what it set out to do. However it is certainly not without it's flaws. Also at US $19.95 its price is pretty high. I shall however not take this into consideration when I rate this product, because prices may vary over time and region and what is a lot of money to one person might be little for another.
The book looks pretty good and I had no problem reading the text or looking up information, though there were some spelling errors and there's a section heading that makes no sense in the last chapter. All in all I think the book deserves a 4 - Classy and well done for Style.
As for Substance: I have several problems with this book, however there are also a few excellent parts and on the whole this a decent product; neither extremely good, nor extremely bad. Therefore I will rate this book as 3 - Average.
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