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Oathbound

Arena

Oathbound finally leaves Penance!. The world of the Oathbound d20 setting (The Forge) from Bastion Press is divided up into 7 basic regions each ruled by an imprisoned angel (aka "Feathered Fowl"), and up to now, all the products have focused on Penance, the domain of Israfel. Which is not surprising, as that's basically the New York of the Forge.

This book, Oathbound: Arena, details the domain of Barbello, as well as includes basic rules for mass combat and "Doom Striders", which are basically magical mecha (and their effects in and out of the mass combat system). Why the focus on war? As the daughter of Israfel and the god imprisoned in the land of Oathbound, she's kind of in an angry, rebellious teen-aged stage of her life. As such, she really likes violence. Really really likes violence.

So instead of starting up her own football league (presumably she learned the lesson of the XFL), she created a region in which people must fight over key resources to survive. Most notably gold (a lot of it), but also oases. And she's seeded this region with a lot of belligerent people. So they constantly war.

Of course bear in mind, each domain of the Forge is designed to ultimately produce someone powerful enough to defeat the ruler of the region, so they can take the rulers place (and so the ruler can be free). They have different methods - for instance, in Penance, you have to be a master of intrigue and politics. In another, you have to be a great thief. Here, in Arena, you have to be a great warlord (and warrior).

The first part of the book describes Arena in moderate amount of detail. The major places and the major players. Like Penance, there are definite good guys and bad guys, with a few in between.

The most interesting warlord is a yoda like goblin enchanter. Other notables include a really tough Dragori from the Bluffside setting (the joys of open content), and a really really old wizard/assassin called "The Shadow Mage" (not really a warlord, though).

The detail of Arena is probably on par with the level of detail given about Penance in the main Oathbound book. That is, enough to get you started, but you'll have to do a lot more work to flesh it out (or perhaps Bastion will do so, like they did with Penance). For the most part it's very interesting, and varied, but I really have to wonder about the effects of inflation. Because there is so much gold, I would think it would drive the value of it down.

About 60 pages of the book is devoted to describing the Arena, and life in it. The next 60 pages or so are devoted to rules material.

If you thought some of the Oathbound races were strange, well, they've gotten a bit stranger. Enter the Trusk, who are basically intelligent walruses (it worked for Star Wars, if not Bloom County). Fortunately for them, there are no penguin people to war with, so they stay in their part of the ocean fairly peaceably. But they have schemes, much like all walruses.

Also in that same vein is the Vogel, which is basically a human sized sparrow (except with an additional pair of hands). That's also a more warlike version of the Valcos (a goat like species) called "War Valcos", which are more like Rams. (Only hopefully they have a better head coach.)

There are a couple more human-centric races. Ferrin, apparently metallic humans. Not robots, just human like people that happen to be made out of metal (or eat it). Kinda like the Silver from the main Oathbound book. On a curious note, while they're not jazz singers, they can apparently crossbreed with humans.

Less strange, but also not quite human, are the Valkyries. Like the name implies, these are humanoid women who like to fight. Unlike the mythological ones, which just rode winged horses, these actually have wings, like angels or stewardesses. Also like stewardesses, they can mate with just about any male in order to reproduce.

For the most part, the races are pretty well balanced. The exception might be the Valkyrie - they are fairly average in all regards except that they can fly. Flight is quite probably worth more in the long run than a +1 level adjustment, but it really depends on the game.

There's also a new selection of prestige races, classes & gifts. Prestige races are slight misnomers, they're more like extra powers you can get by spending xp. There are 6 new prestige classes, including one for me, the Focus of the Odd.

There are basic rules for mass combat (about 10 pages worth). Apparently it's a greatly expanded version of the rules included in AEG's War. Or at least, seems inspired by them - the ones in War are very very vague, this are somewhat akin to the rules from the old Companion D&D rules, but some of the things are the same (like the unit types). Basically, an army is divided up into units, which have stats somewhat like characters (including levels). They then duke it out in battle, much like regular d20 combat.

Unit types are treated like character classes, complete with levels. There is Archer, Arcane Spellcaster, Cavalry, Footman, Skirmishers, Divine Spellcaster. Units can even multi-class, but this is not explained very well, so I'm not sure how that would work. Units have ratings for Base Attack Bonus, Defense Rating (somewhat like AC), and most importantly, damage dice.

Combat is pretty simple. A unit attacks, and rolls a d20 and adds its BAB, just like characters. The result is compared to the unit being attacked's defense rating. Now here is where it gets different from d20. Instead of seeing if the attack hit, you determine how much damage it did. You subtract the defense rating from the attack roll, and compare it to a chart, which modifies the number of damage dice inflicted. The result is the literal number of casualties. That is, if you roll x on the damage dice, x members of the defending unit are casualties. For every 100 casualties, the effectiveness of the unit goes down by 1 damage dice (that they can inflict).

All units have 1000 members in it (though you can probably tinker with this), so that's the amount of casualties they can take before being destroyed. Though they'll probably flee before that. And needless to say, you have to do a lot of dice rolling. But after playing around with it for a bit, it's actually a pretty clever little system.

Various unit types have different ratings from level to level, and certain units (like spellcasters) have special abilities.

Though it's a chapter later, there are also rules for all sorts of siege machines and how they fit into the mass combat system.. But even better, are rules for mecha like things, called "Doom Striders". I had seen "Doom Striders" in the Bastion catalog, but I was expecting something more akin to the walking machines of H.G. Well's Martians. But apparently I was mistaken, they're pretty much mecha. They also about 10 pages here, enough for basic designs, along with rules on how to use them in the mass combat system.

They remind me of the Voltron sort of mecha. Not that they're made up of 5 lions that combine into one big robot guy, but that they can wield great big swords and other melee weapons. They do have pilots, usually just one, but possibly more depending on the design.

It's not quite a mecha, though. The pilot is in something of a symbiosis with the Doom Strider. The Doom Strider's hit points are a multiple of the pilots, and when the 'Strider takes damage, so does the pilot.

The main drawback of them is that they need a lot of magical energy to operate. Basically, each action takes energy points. There are a variety of 'gas' tank sizes to fuel them, but they all require spell levels from a arcane magic user. (Not unlike how the magic bi-planes worked in D&D's Top Ballista). Basically, the level of the spell translates into energy points - a 6th level spell is worth 6 energy points, and so on. The gas tanks are quite small, the biggest is only 30 pts, so they will have to be refilled in battle a number of times.

There's going to be an entire book on them later this year (December is the plan, I think), but this does give you enough to make them & use them in your game.

Lastly, there is a 30 page adventure. Like most of the adventures included in Oathbound books, this seems to be part of a greater plot or story arc. It is meant to introduce characters to the Arena portion of the Forge, on a mission for Lord Belus (of course!). While I don't want to give spoilers, it involves them hunting down a relic of sorts, and along the way they will have to storm a stronghold (using the mass combat system).

The layout is generally excellent, with the outer margin containing the chapter number, and the top margin having the chapter name and section. Which makes finding things easy. I wish all companies would do this. There is also a 2 page index and a table of contents.

The art is generally pretty good, but nothing particularly striking.

The rules for mass combat seem to be pretty decent in my quick try out, though I think they need to be fleshed out more (and clarified a bit, at least on multiclassing units), and the Doom Striders are fascinating. However, I would have liked more information on the strategic level of warfare. Building up your cities and strongholds, as opposed to just army units. Also, the Oathbound setting features Airships (from Bastion's own book, the excellent "Airships"), it seems to me that they could be a very big part of mass combat as well. So I would have liked to have seen rules for integrating them (maybe in a web supplement).

It's also a nice change of pace for PCs. In past Oathbound products, it seemed liked the PCs were merely lackeys, mostly to Lord Belus, who seems to be the Elminster of Oathbound (though less annoying and much less cliched). Here they still seem tied to a more powerful NPC's will (and again, Lord Belus's in the adventure in the book), but they have much more freedom to create their own domain.

So, it's a pretty good book, (call it a solid B) but I think it tries to do too much, and in trying to do so much, it doesn't do any of the subjects it covers justice. For instance, while the mass combat rules are fairly nice, if you want to run a game where your PCs are in fact warlords, you'll probably need to pick up one of the recent books on the subject for d20, for the non-mass combat aspects of warfare. (Empire from AEG, Fields of Blood from Eden, Strongholds & Dynasties from Mongoose. None of which I have, but all I hope to someday buy, though probably not anytime soon, 2005 from the looks of my bank account). While Bastion tried to give you all the tools, they really only gave you the bare bones. Still, it's a fascinating look into another aspect and area of the Forge, and continues the excellent support Bastion has had for Oathbound.