OK, I have some time, so I'm going to start thread number two of #Giantlands, the "Keeper's Guide".
First thread on the "Spirit's Guide" is here:
James Ward did the foreword on the first book, but Ernie gets his chance here... which means we get a shameless plug and the physical address of the DHSM in the last paragraph.
So they provide an example of a combat encounter... It's worth noting that not only is initiative based on current health, but it apparently changes each round. As you take damage, you move down in the turn order.
What Gary adventure is that from?
So the Keeper's Guide contains a considerable amount of "how to make the game fun" as well as lore, which is good considering the Spirits Guide had very little lore that made sense.
Despite that, the "History of the Giants" and "Types if Giants" sections are only 2-3 pages.
Actually, I disagree.
And confirmed, as you take damage the initiative order changes.
Yeah, not a fan.
Now I may not be the best of swimmers, but I'm pretty sure it'll take me less than SIX MINUTES to swim 100 yards.
How does surprise work, you wonder? Doesn't matter how perceptive you might be, you got about a 50% chance of being surprised no matter what.
And one player rolls for the whole group.
No flanking, but backstab gains you +25%.
Oh, and we'll come back to that shield thing in a bit.
And I'm pretty sure we've all heard this story before.
We're back on Sigils and Ley attacks, which I still don't quite get. They basically look like spells, but there's a pretty high chance of failure and some spells have different effects depending on that d100 roll.
It really makes no sense to put all these spells in the Keeper's Guide, which is theoretically only read by the Spirit Keeper... These spells should be player facing in the Spirits Guide. That's like 30 pages in the wrong book.
Remember how your Life Force could be as high as 200? Well at max this means you can theoretically fall upwards of 600+ feet and live.
That's pretty much it for the Keeper's Guide... This is a more guideline-heavy book to explain the DM how to run things, which is honestly what it should be.
It also suffers from the usual problems of having a player-centric book separate from a DM-centric one.
The third book in the set, the "5th Age Index" Monster Manual, will have to wait.
Here's my short commentary on the 5th Age Index...
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