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Legends of Excalibur

"Behold! Excalibur, the sword of kings; forged when the world was young and life was but a dream.""

Legends of Excalibur is a d20 take on the King Arthur Legend. It's largely still D&D, though a heavily tweaked (it uses new classes, a spell point system, and drops alignment). It started off as two PDF files (as most RPGObjects books do) and recently made it into hardback book form. It's firmly based on Malory, and stylistically, like the movie Excalibur (i.e., people running around in plate mail), as opposed to a historical Arthur game.

There are two other d20 versions of King Arthur which appeared in print first - "I, Mordred" from Avalanche Press (which I have and reviewed) which came out in 2003, and "Relics & Rituals: Excalibur" from Sword & Sorcery/White Wolf (which I don't have, but plan on getting eventually), which came out about a month before this did in print (but after this appeared in PDF). Both of those provided a twist on the usual Arthurian Mythos. "I, Morded", changed things around so Mordred was the good guy. From what I've seen of it (flipping through it at the store), "Relics & Rituals: Excalibur" fits the Arthurian mythos into a D&D context (i.e., having Half-Orcs and Halflings and all the D&D classes and such), rather than changing the D&D/d20 rules to fit the mythos.

When I was young, one of my favorite TSR games was "Knights of Camelot" (also largely based on Malory). It was a boardgame, you would play a generic knight, and would go on quests and such, win the favors of ladies (and trade them in for better ones), and try to become a Knight of the Round Table. I've always wanted something like that, but more RPG based.

But there has really been a dearth of King Arthur based RPGs. Which always struck me as odd, given that it basically was fantasy fiction before fantasy fiction, and so such a big influence on the fantasy genre as a whole, and D&D in particular. Yes, there is Pendragon, but like many Chaosium RPG's, it had something of a pretentious attitude that turned me off. It also was too gritty for my taste, trying to be realistic, rather than legendary. I mean, the "real" Arthur wasn't famous, the legendary one was. So why play a game about the "real" one, minus all the fantastic stuff?

It's also odd, because while on the one hand, everyone knows the basic story of Arthur, no one knows the true story. There have been so many retellings and versions that the GM can do anything. There's not even any basic agreement on who completed the quest of the Holy Grail (originally Perceval), what Arthur's sword was named (Mostly Excalibur, but some say Caliburn, also a couple of celtic names), who Mordred's mother was (Morgawse or Morgan le Fey?). And then you have deliberate revisions, like Twain's "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" or Arthur Machen's Call of Cthulhu-ish tale, "The Great Return" (which okay, doesn't have Cthulhu in it, but has the same sort of weirdness HPL tried for). Even the end of Arthur and Camelot isn't necessarily written in stone - many legends have him live, just going away to Avalon, and someday return. Or it could end with everyone being arrested. The whole Arthurian Mythos should make wonderful ground for RPGs, but there just really haven't been much, for some reason. Even AD&D only saw the Arthurian Mythos in Deities and Demi-Gods, while Charlemange got an entire sourcebook.

So, I was looking very forward to this (especially as it was written by Charles Rice, one of the better d20 authors around), which as I said, is a more traditional take on the Arthurian legend, largely based on the most famous version of the tale, Malory's Morte d'Arthur (and a lesser extent, Tennyson's King Arthur poem, Idylls of the King).

"Any man who would be a knight and follow a king... follow me."

It is pretty much is the same flavor of d20 as D&D, but with different classes and a different magic system (one based on spell points). That is, more of a light tweak, as opposed to something like Conan, Spycraft, which is a moderate tweak. More like Sovereign Stone d20. It also drops alignment.

The new classes are:

Fool - Finally a class for me! Actually, Arthur had a fool named Dagonet. (Who despite the name, is not the god of the French Deep Ones)

Hedge Mage - Aka, the Lawn Wizard. Really, this seems a bit misnamed, it's more a general sort of magician or wizard. Hedge Mage is sort of an awkward name, anyway.

Hermit - More like a priest that lives in seclusion. Monks would also be this.

Knight - There have been a lot of other versions of the Knight, but this is probably the best I've seen. Their main abilities are to be able to fight with heavy armor on but with reduced penalties, and able to fight well on a horse.

Minstrel - "Just sit right back, and I'll tell you a tale...". These are actually meant to be Celtic/Druidic bards. They don't cast spells, but have some magical abilities.

Noble - Sort of a souped up Aristocrat

Priest - Still somewhat combat orientated like the D&D cleric, the priest also gets to perform various religious ceremonies.

Robber Baron - Sort of a dastardly knight. I actually think this one is a bit weak. Basically, it gets the average base attack bonus, d8 for hit points, 4 skill points, and fairly mild special ability (most notably, sneak attack, maxing out at 6d6). Actually, I think a character would be better off simply being a multiclass Fighter/Rogue. I think the BAB should be like the best, IMHO.

Skald - Basically, the Saxon version of the bard, and again, not really magical.

Yeoman - Really, more of an woodsman/archer. Robin Hood would be one of these.

Most the classes from D&D are tossed out, except the Fighter, the Rogue, the Barbarian, the Bard, and the Druid. The latter two aren't really changed at all, except for switching to a spell point system. I'm not sure I like this - both the Bard and Druid are a bit more magical than the other classes. Especially the Druid, he has some flashy lightning spells. (And the Bard has Shadow Evocation, which could let him cast pseudo-fireballs).

Other than that caveat, for the most part this seems pretty good, and the classes seem to be pretty well balanced. But it does seem odd that there are 3 types of Entertainer (Minstrel, Fool, Skald), but only one type of magician. I would perhaps liked to seen a witch. Also, the name "Hedge Mage" implies something of a charlatan or rustic. "Magician" or just "Mage" probably would have been a better name for the class.

There's a whole bunch of prestige classes. Alchemist, Berserker, Changeling, Court Mage, Crusader, Enchantress, Lady of the Lake (there was more than one in Malory, actually), Quest Knight, Saint, and Spectral Knight (that is, based on a color - Black, Blue, Green, Purple, Red, White).

The Quest Knight is one that is dedicated to looking for the Holy Grail. The various color knights are based on the various color nights of the tales. The Green is sort of a woodsy knight, the White is almost like a Paladin, a very holy knight. The Black Knight is dastardly.

I'm not really a fan of prestige classes, but this is how they should work, for things like this. I've never seen them integrated so well into the source material before.

Also supported, are the rules for epic characters. There is info on how to make epic versions of all the core and prestige classes. Very nice - I think this is the first book I've seen that does this, despite the fact the epic rules were added to the System Reference Document ages ago.

Although there is the "Enchantress" prestige class, there doesn't seem to be anything specific for ladies of the court. I guess they would use "Noble", though I don't really think that fits in most cases. Also, it doesn't really address gender, though some of the descriptions of various Knightly classes' powers uses the feminine pronouns. While not found in Malory, there were a couple instances of female knights. Britomart and one other from the Faerie Queene by Spenser, and King Arthur's Daughter, Melora, from the Irish (or maybe Welsh) story "Orlando and Melora".

Actually, speaking of that, I think perhaps there should have been some sort of courtly romance system. While on the one hand, that is prime role-playing material, it's really the sort of stuff that is trick to do when all your players are male. (Much like my difficulties with HeartQuest, the game of Japanese teenage romance, except that evolved into crude jokes.) So perhaps rules are best for things like this. I think Atlas has or had a d20 supplement for this, called "Love and War", but haven't seen it nor have I read any reviews or even any mention of it anywhere. But the preview seems like it might have something like that. (Though Malory and some of the tales are more bawdy than romantic.)

"Now look, I once stood exposed to the Dragon's Breath so that a man could lie one night with a woman. It took me nine moons to recover"

As mentioned, it uses a spell point system instead of the normal D&D fire and forget system, though it still uses D&D's spell levels and caster level. While I tend to like this, the implementation is a bit more complex than I usually like. Essentially, spells cast a variable amount of spell points, depending on the spell level and the caster level. You have to look it up on a chart. For instance, a 1st level spell costs 2 points for a 1st level spell caster, but only 1 for casters that are levels 2nd through 17th. Actually, the spell level seems to be the point cost most of the time, except at low and high caster levels. This does give spell casters more flexibility, but does complicate things.

Further complicating things is mana levels. Depending on what sort of spell caster the character is, where the spell is being cast will raise or lower their casting level, and thus costing them more or fewer points. The location also controls how many spell points they regenerate (this can sometimes be negative, causing some casters to lose points over time).

While this level of detail is nice, I think it's probably best suited for say a computer game. Too much record keeping for my taste.

It mostly uses existing D&D spells, but the spell list for the Hedge Mage and Priest/Hermit is pretty much stripped of any really flashy spells. There are something like 35 new spells, some of which are aimed at recreating Arthurian magic, but others seem just based on spell point system. For instance, there are various spells that suck or drain spell points from targets. These also have very un-Arthurian names, usually having "Mana" in the title, making them sound more suitable for Final Fantasy than King Arthur.

"When a man lies, he murders some part of the world."

Besides the spell point system, the other big change from D&D is dropping "Alignment" in favor of something called "Nobility". Nobility is essentially a rating of 0 to 100 on how noble or virtuous a character is.

The nobility score often has an effect on class abilities - many abilities give a bonus based on how many nobility points they have, like a +1 bonus on a skill for every 10 nobility points, extra damage, etc, etc.

Various actions or inactions will affect the nobility score, and this is also magnified by any "Allegiances" the character may have. Allegiances are basically things the character has sworn to obey or do. For instance, follow the Code of Chivalry, or be Celibate.

This is actually a pretty good system, because if you read the Arthurian tales, many of the knights were actually jerks. Even Arthur himself is almost certainly guilty of mass infanticide, he heard the prophecy that his son (Mordred) by his half-sister would doom him and his kingdom, so he gathered up all the infants born around the same time as Mordred and put them adrift on a ship.

The horse is an integral part of the Knight - in chess, a Knight is depicted by a horse. So it's not surprising that this book has fairly detailed rules for horses. Horses comes in several different qualities, and they can have any of a number of different traits.

I think this is where the first PDF ended, which was more sort of a player's guide. The second half of the book is more GM material.

It starts off with information on the legend of King Arthur, and knighthood in general. It uses the mythic history of Britain, that is, it was founded by Brutus, great-grandson of Aeneas. It gives a recap of the Arthur story. The telling is done is a very neat way, using excerpts from Malory or Tennyson or something else to provide flavor. (Actually, you get dozens of these things in little boxes all over the book, but in the history section, they are in the main text itself).

"Talk. Talk is for lovers, Merlin. I need the sword to be king"

Many of the important characters from the stories get statted up, reminiscent of Deities & Demigods for AD&D. Besides the major ones (Arthur, Galahad, Lancelot, Gawain and company), there are some minor ones like Sir Torre (or Tor). Missing is my old favorite, Sir Lamorak (which I used to use as an alias in my early days on the internet) and of course, some of my non-Malory favorites, like Melora, King Arthur's daughter, or Britomart, from The Faerie Queene.

Curiously, though, several knights seem to have better stats than Lancelot. While he is a 30th level (epic) character, there are quite a few that are just a few levels lower, but have a lot more hit points. I'm actually not sure how the hit points of the various NPCs were calculated. Most seem within legal range, but some have more or fewer than I would have thought.

There's a gazetteer of the Arthurian world. Including not just places in Britain, but other places Arthur is rumored to have gone or warred against. This is actually quite larger than most people might think. In some versions of the tale, Arthur conquered pretty much all of Western Europe, including fighting with the Romans.

It covers which monsters from the Monster Manual fit in the Arthurian world, and there's a small section of new monster, like the Questing Beast and White Hart. I thought it kind of glossed over the role of Dwarves in Arthurian Mythos - it does mention them, but they were pretty common, and probably deserved more than a paragraph. There's also a selection of Arthurian magic items, including Excalibur and a couple other swords, plus rules for Jousting.

What's also nice is the book is full of little details that makes it helpful to run games. For instance, you get stats for NPCs from levels 1 to 20. d20 is a stat heavy system, so this is really a godsend.

There are also entire campaign outlines for various periods in Arthur's reign. The first one, when he just comes to power, features a fairly well detailed description of a village (Caerleon) that can be used as a home base. There are a couple more outlines, similar in content (including detailing an area or home base), but for later periods.

I really like this. Many supplements like this pretty much abandon the GM to doing all the work. This gives the GM a lot of material to start out with.

"Looking at the cake is like looking at the future, until you've tasted it what do you really know? And then, of course, it's too late."

It's a very attractive book. In an interesting twist, it uses turn of the last century artwork, illustrations from old books on King Arthur. Some companies have tried to do this just to save money (Fast Forward), but usually used really lousy old artwork and generally had no connection with the text on the page.

This book very good old artwork, from artists who are apparently really really famous (besides being dead), and the illustrations are always tied into the text in the page. So it really sets the mood well. In particular the works of Eleanor Brickdale, Arthur Rackham, and William Russell Flint really stand out. You can find a lot of them at the Camelot Project art page, but a few are in the book that I can't seem to find online (though if you do a web search, you'll see that those 3 are very famous). They give the title of the work, the artist name, and the source, which is something I really like. There are a lot of maps, all by Clayton Bunce, who did the maps in Thumble and Oester, among other things, and is probably the best cartographer in the RPG business these days (though admittedly, I can probably only name 1-2 others).

The paper is fairly thick, making the book seem larger than 160 pages. The front and end papers are used to display color versions of the interior maps. Again, really nice looking. The net result of all this is a very classy looking book. Unfortunately, no index, but the layout is very straight forward, and there's a nice table of contents, so you don't miss it that much.

"You must remember, there's always something cleverer than yourself."

This is a very good book. A very solid A. It was meant to be a d20 book on the King Arthur of Malory, and it does that about as good as it possibly can. I think the only real complaint someone could make is the keeping of the Bard and Druid almost as is (just changing from the fire & forget system to the spell point system in this book), most the other stuff is just nitpicky.

While it's not the RPG version of "Knights of Camelot" I long for, this is pretty close to what I wanted. I think most people wanting a fun Arthurian based game will like this book a lot.

I also have to add, that the author really did his homework. In order to write this review and in preparation of running a game, I've been brushing up on my King Arthur, and re-reading Malory (or actually, John Steinbeck's retelling of Malory) and it's amazing how many things mentioned in that (or other sources) show up in this book.

(Another good reason to buy this book is that they advertise on RPG.net. It's that ad with the dart board looking thing, which is actually the Winchester Round Table at Winchester castle)

(All the quotes are from the movie Excalibur, and while many don't really fit the context of the review, I really liked them. Especially the cake one. I tried to work a Bea Arthur joke into this, but sadly, couldn't)

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