Song and Silence is the fourth in the series of five class books for the Dungeons and Dragons 3E game. Its intention is to examine rogues and bards in depth and offer new ways to develop them. It does so with explanations of their abilities, some variant rules, and with a selection of new feats, equipment, spells and prestige classes.
The book is divided into six chapters: Prestige Classes, Skill and Feats, Bard and Rogue Equipment, Organizations for Bards and Rogues, You and the World Around You, and Spells.
As normal for a Wizard book, the presentation is clean and extremely attractive, the interior black and white drawings are of a very high quality.
Chapter One: Prestige Classes has some of my favourite material in the book. The Virtuoso is the only prestige class that properly expands the ability of the bard, adding the virtuoso performance ability: nine magical songs with effects beyond those of the normal bard that are gained as the Virtuoso gains levels. In sacrifice, the Virtuoso does not continuing gaining Bardic Knowledge, nor does he or she have access to Knowledge skills.
The Fang of Lolth is quite unusual - a rogue or bard who has been cursed by drowic magic and who is becoming more and more arachnid in form as time goes on. As a transformational prestige class, I find this one very inventive, even though it is unlikely to see much use in a standard campaign.
The Spymaster (spymistress?) takes impersonation and disguise to a new level. In addition to those abilities that you might expect a spymaster to possess - undetectable alignment, cover identity, mind blank and quick change - it also requires the character to gain a smattering of understanding in various craft, knowledge and profession skills, something I found a very nice touch.
Both the Dungeon Delver and the Thief-Acrobat are very much well thought of by players in my group. The Dungeon Delver really is the archetypal D&D thief: no thought for picking pockets, it's all dungeon adventuring for him! Abilities such as Blindsight, Treasure Sense, Darkvision and enhanced Danger Sense make this the prestige class to take if your DM is old-fashioned like myself and likes sending you through dungeon-crawls. The Thief-Acrobat expands on that other great ability of the 3E rogue: Tumble. The resulting class seems a bit crazily like a Monk/Thief hybrid - no unarmed attacks, though. However, with trip abilities, the ability to recover from such falls, and increased defensive manuevers the Thief-Acrobat is a popular choice in my campaigns.
The other prestige classes are as follows: Dread Pirate, Outlaw of the Crimson Road, Royal Explorer, Temple Raider of Olidammara, and Vigilante. Rarely does one of them fail for me, making this one of the best collections of Prestige Classes in one of the classbooks.
The one flaw is a lack of bardic-themed classes. The Royal Explorer, Spymaster and Thief-Acrobat would seem to be possibly bardic in nature, but as they abandon the bard's spell-casting and knowledge abilties, I don't think the player of a bard would find them attractive. Of course, it should be said that the Virtuoso does very well in expanding the musical abilities, whilst the Loremaster (from the DMG) goes down the path of expanding the Bardic Knowledge ability.
Chapter Two: Skills and Feats
This chapter is something of a grab-bag of material. It starts with rules for creating poisons using the Craft (Poisonmaking) skill, then moves to an extended discussion on creating traps which also includes a list of 90 sample traps from CR 1 to 10. As a DM, this material is extremely useful to me, especially the discussion on assigning a Challenge Rating to a particular trap. I'm not so sure how useful it would be to the average player - but as it encourages the use of traps and thus makes the rogue more useful for the party, I'm very happy to see it here.
There are a few notes on skills, primarily a variant opposed Tumble rule and expanded rules on Hide, then the chapter moves on to discussing the new feats. There are 26 new feats here, many of the dual skill bonus type. For example, Persuasive gives a 2 bonus on all Bluff and Intimidate checks. Some of the descriptions are quite amusing, the former feat is described as "You could sell a tindertwig hat to a troll".
The majority of these feats are really good value, and are clearly explained. Many are particularly useful to the bard, expanding their musical and knowledge abilities. For instance, Requiem allows you to affect undead creatures with bardic music, Green Ear the same for plants. The rogue is not neglected either, with many combat feats building on sneak attack.
Also given here is the revised Expert Tactician, in a much better form than what was originally. given in Sword and Fist.
Chapter Three: Bard and Rogue Equipment
This chapter is probably my least favourite of the lot, beginning as it does with ten pages of variant rules for bardic instruments. A large number of these instruments are described. Each instrument is also given a special ability the masterwork version can create, if the bard playing it foregoes the masterwork bonus to his or her Perform check.
An example of this is the Lyre, which gives you a 2 circumstance bonus on Perform checks for countersong, fascinate, or suggestion attempts when the listeners are fey. Interesting... given that you had to forego the 2 masterwork bonus. Some perceptive editing here would not have gone astray.
The Alphorn (a large horn) is more interesting: it permits the bardic music effects to reach out to 1d10 miles away.
I don't exactly know why I don't like this section that much - I feel it might be because it overcomplicates the rules. Still, some people may find it of use, and at least the descriptions of the instruments may allow more variety and role-playing approaches.
The final eight pages of this chapter deal with new weapons, rogue equipment and magic items. Some of them just seem silly to me, but most should prove useful. I do like the expandable pole (a mundane bamboo rod that can be assembled to between 1 to 11 feet in length), and the singing sword is also quite amusing.
Chapter 4: Organizations for Bards and Rogues gives descriptions of ten thieves' guilds and seven bardic colleges. The manner in which the thieves' guilds are presented is extremely well done. Each one is presented in this fashion: the Organisation of the guild is explained, then the Guild Rules, Advancement Opportunities, the Locations the guild uses, its Assets, Goals, Conflicts and finally Hooks for the DM and players.
Examples of each type of Thieves' Guild are also presented. This is all material that should prove extremely useful for DMs and players who want a little inspiration for detailing their world. The discussions of the Goals, Conflicts and Hooks make the guilds extremely attractive, and campaigns could easily be built off just one of the guilds presented here.
The Bardic Colleges are similarly well presented: Area of Study, Organization, Activities, Distinctions, Admission, Membership Benefits, Dues, and Relations being the topics addressed. This colleges are a lot more unusual - dare I say inventive? - than the thieves' guilds, and may not be suitable for your campaign, but I do think they are all worth looking at.
Chapter 5: You and the World Around You is primarily for the inexperienced player, describing some basic role-playing and gaming tips about rogues and bards. There is also a discussion of flanking unusual creatures, something that I find extremely useful.
As might be expected, this chapter is well-written, though not greatly useful for the experienced player.
Chapter 6: Spells gives four new assassin spells, and 30 new bardic spells. Some of the spells are extremely useful and inventive. My personal favourites include Choir, which creates a group of illusionary accompanists that gives a 2 bonus on Perform checks; Protege, which grants another creature bardic abilities; and Listening Coin - a method of remote eavesdropping that is a staple of many fantasy books.
Conclusion
Song and Silence is, in fact, a very good book for expanding the capabilities of Bards and Rogues. It's main flaw - that of only providing one prestige class that truly expands on the Bard - is mitigated by its other material that helps the Bard.
Could more be written to expand both the Bard and the Rogue? Undoubtedly. But in a 96-page book, the authors have given us a fair selection of material to work with, and it is one of the more useful supplements on my shelf, well worth possessing.
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