Legends of Carthage

One of the somewhat neglected areas of d20 are real world historical sourcebooks. While Avalanche Press tried to cover this field, they spent all their money on hiring the artist for the cover, leaving very little left to spend on the rest of the product, resulting in very short, very ugly, very sparse books.

So those apparently didn't sell all that well, and Avalanche Press went out of the d20 business, leaving a void in the d20 field. There have been a few companies who have picked up the slack. Mongoose, with some of their OGL line of products (OGL Ancients, OGL Wild West, OGL Disco); Green Ronin, with their Mythic Vistas line; and RPGObjects, with their "Legends" line, which tends to be based more on the myths and legends, than actual history.

The first two main products are Legends of Excalibur (an Arthurian sourcebook) and Legends of the Samurai. Beyond those there is sort of a "mini" line, strictly PDF, which covers small areas that are possibly too small for a long book. This, Legends of Carthage, is the first in the series. It's pretty short, 11 pages total, 9 pages of actual content.

The Product Itself

Basically, you get a 3 page overview of Carthage (mostly a timeline), a new core class, and stats and a writeup for 2 of the relevent people associated with Carthage. Scipio Africanus, who beyond having one of the coolest names ever, was a great Roman general who fought Carthage; and Mr. Carthage himself, Hannibal Barca, aka the original Elephant Man.

The descriptions of the two are pretty much what you expect. You even get a pictures of busts of them. Scipio actually looks a lot like the guy who played Methos on Highlander. Conversely, Hannibal is the one that looks like a 70s action hero, complete with sideburns.


The stats are a bit odd for the two. For Scipio, apparently the rules from Legend of Excalibur were used, as he is an 12th level Fighter/8th Level Noble (a class from that book). While probably fitting that he would be a Noble (or an Aristocrat), this means one of his special abilities is "Dispense Justice (Ex): You are considered a legal representative by the medieval system, authorized to administer justice, arbitrate disputes, and also to perform legal functions such as ordaining knights."

Which er, is a bit out of place (or time). Also, like in Legends of Excalibur, he's statted out with an array of magical items, including magical full plate. I'm not an expert on history, but did they have full plate then? This sort of stuff worked in LoE because it was meant to emulate the stories of Malory, which indeed did have magic armor and weapons and such and was somewhat ahistorical (ie, plate mail everywhere). Not quite the case of the Romans and Scipio.


Hannibal is pretty much statted up as a standard D&D character. A Fighter/Barbarian/Ranger. Complete with dual-wielding weapons. Which is not something I think of when I think Hannibal, though after some websearch, I can't disprove it, either. His Intelligence score also seems somewhat low at 12. He was by most accounts, a military genius (if perhaps not as smart as he thought he was), so I would think at least 16-18 would be right.


While I realize it's for a competing product, I think it would have been cooler to have them statted up using the classes from OGL Ancients. (Which while set just before the rise of Rome, has pretty much the Carthaginian sort of feel).


The new core class, the Mercenary, is somewhere between a Fighter and a Barbarian. Has the Barbarian's hit dice and skill points per level, but completely different special abilities. Seems about right, which is to be expected from the author.

Very helpfully, there is a chart for standard Mercenaries from levels 1-20, so you can easily come up with a Mercenary NPC. While RPGObjects pretty much always does it, in general very few d20 products do this when they add a new core classes. Which makes it tougher for the GM to actually use the class for NPCs.

There's also a couple of new spells, though neither is likely to be used much by PCs. One curses a place (what the Romans did to Carthage after burning it down) and one that gives a character a bonus when they are trying to accomplish a sworn goal (meant to simulate Hannibal's vow to bring down the Roman Empire). The latter might be a bit unbalanced, as it can give essentially a lifetime (of the character) bonus to attack and skill rolls, depending on the nature of the goal. Though it does cost 500 XP, it seems like a bargain, at least in Hannibal's case, to get a +2 to his attack rolls against pretty much the only people he fought, the Romans.

Final Thoughts

While this is not a bad product, I think it's a bit off target. I would have liked to have seen more on Carthage itself. For instance, d20 style stats for Carthage. Maybe some domains and writeups for the Gods of Carthage, like Baal.

Or maybe a class based on Carthage. The Mercenary class, while solid, seems a bit generic. Yes, Carthage used a lot of them, but they also had a fairly unique culture, especially with regards to their religion (which apparently included mass child sacrifice). Since 2 great generals are statted up, perhaps there should have been a prestige class for generals?

Anyway, if it had been called "Power Class - Mercenary" or somesuch, it would be pretty good, but as a Carthage supplement, it's a bit off the mark. And of course, you can't even begin to do Carthage justice in 10 pages or so. C+

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