Noble Steeds: A d20 Guide to Horses & Mounts
From: Avalanche Press
Reviewed by: Matthew P. Picio
Noble Steeds is a new d20 sourcebook from Virginia Beach-based Avalanche Press, adding much-needed detail to the subject of horses and mounts in a d20 campaign.
The Hype:
A horse is not just a horse. This supplement, compatible with any d20 campaign, allows you to customize a special mount for your character. Everything you need to know to create a legendary mount suitable to your character's heroic reputation is here. (from the back cover)
The Truth:
Avalanche Press follows through with their claims in this excellent d20 supplement. Noble Steeds provides an excellent overview of the horse - its history, uses, coloration and markings, influence on cultural myths and its anatomy. In addition to the descriptive paragraphs covering these subjects (and more), there are useful sidebars containing game mechanics for handling disease, mistreatment, care and feeding of a character's horse. This is followed by two chapters detailing the various breeds of light and heavy horses. Each breed write-up contains a description of the history and characteristics of the breed and a stat block giving the modifiers to the standard horse statistics. Now if you wish to run a campaign with elite breeds of horses (Krull, anyone?) or simply avoid the monotony of "I buy 4 light war horses", you can. Though the emphasis is on fantasy campaigns, the book takes into account the differences between modern horses and their ancestors, including modifiers to saving throws for today's more fragile steeds.
The chapters on light and heavy horses are followed by chapters on other beasts of burden (elephants, camels) and legendary mounts, such as the Pegasus and the Gryphon. AP provides alternate stats for the legendary steeds, differing slightly from the published MM statistics. An enjoyable feature of this section is the addition of Fey horses and constructs, which are well-thought and creative.
If the book is heavy on description in the first 5 chapters, it is balanced by the flood of game mechaincs in the last 2. Chapter 6, Steed Creation, provides a wealth of information that ensures that your character's horse will never be generic again. It contains classes and feats for steeds, allowing a high level of customization and making a character's mount a true NPC. The final chapter in the book provides a more detailed look at outfitting a steed than is provided in the D&D Player's Handbook, plus steed-specific magic items.
The Execution:
Overall, the book is set up well. The layout is better than average, save for one or two pages where the sidebars vastly outnumber the main text. The editing is above average, and the interior art is appropriate and does not overwhelm the surrounding text. There are a few printing errors, such as the hit dice for the light horse being greater than the heavy horse, and the base stats for some of the mounts appears to vary between the standard and war variants of the light and heavy horses. It is not told in the text whether these variations are a deliberate change to the MM published stats. Hopefully Avalanche Press will publish errata for the book on their website. Overall, however, the book is generally without flaws and well above average in terms of production value.
The Recap:
Noble Steeds is a superior sourcebook that more than delivers on what it promises. It provides a valuable resource and expansion for any d20 setting, and is well worth its $16.95 cover price. I highly recommend it.
Noble Steeds: A d20 Guide to Horses & Mounts
Publisher: Avalanche Press
Published: Q4 2002
Print Status: In Print
Item Type: d20 sourcebook
Written by: Ree Soesbee
Cover & Interior Art by: Terry Moore Strickland
Number of Pages: 64
Retail Price: $ 16.95 (US)
Item Number: APL09120
IBSN: 1-932091-05-X
Website: www.avalanchepress.com
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