Charge!

Charge!
From: Living Imagination, Inc.
Reviewed by: John Kirk

With Charge!, Living Imaginations, Inc. brings us another book along with their other supplements, Broadsides!, Pirates!, and Rampant!. This book lives up to its predecessors, and gives us another great product from Living Imagination, Inc.

From the website: “ • Everything you ever wanted to know about the military in a fantasy campaign. • How to enrich your campaign with detailed military organizations and actions, and many ways for PC's to interact with armies and commanders. • Military prestige classes, feats, spells, and rituals. • Discusses military structure, customs and strategy throughout history, and fantasy armies of mages or monsters. ”

Charge! is subtitled, ‘A Military Rules Supplement,’ and fills 128 pages with excellent military and combat rules and information. It’s packed full of classes, feats, and prestige classes, along with all the information you’ll ever need on bringing war to the front of your campaign.

The book starts off with a short introduction chapter, including a ‘How to Use this Book’ section and a ‘Before Using this Book’ section which helps you along with the thought process detailing the wars and battles that will be occurring in your campaign. These are fairly helpful, and are pretty detailed.

The first chapter is entitled ‘King and Country’ and includes three new core classes; the Soldier, the Mariner, and the Monarch. These are all well-balanced, fit for player character classes, and have unique abilities that make these more than just another bland class. Except for an error in the Soldier’s class table, these are well edited and well written.

Chapter two is chock full of thirteen prestige classes, most of which are based on historical groups of warriors, such as the Centurion, the Chaplain, the Cossack, the Lancer, the Landesknecht, and the Trench Fighter. These vary in quality but are all very unique and most contain quotes and various flavor text that increase the value of the classes.

Next up comes the chapter on feats. All of the feats listed are ‘Military’ feats—ones that can be taken by a soldier as a bonus feat. There are more than fifty feats total, most dealing with leading troops or being in a large battle. While some of these seem to not be balanced, the majority of the feats are well balanced and original.

‘Magic in Warfare’ comes next, and shows the varieties and usefulness of magic during war. This chapter includes three military spells and seven military rituals (which requires the use of Spellbound to be used effectively). These spells and rituals seem to work fine, although are nearly useless without Spellbound.

The next chapter, ‘Culture and Economy in Warfare,’ contains a lot of very useful information, especially if you are detailing a setting during war. It starts off by showing what each of the alignments does to military forces when they are in power. Then, it gives several examples of military command chains, how the economy works around war, and several tables and charts to help you. Next comes ways of recruitment for these armies, rank and promotion information, and propaganda.

Chapter six details the presentation of war and tactics. Things like intra-service rivalry, black markets, alcohol, and atrocities. Then, it shows how chariots, elephants, carnivorous mounts, the phalanx, mounted archers, and other such tactics. It gives rules on arrow volleys during a battle, which includes player characters that are very creative and well-balanced. The chapter ends with a table of effective troops against certain enemy armies.

‘Players on the battlefield,’ chapter seven, is a very helpful chapter. It includes goals for players, units, and armies, such as disrupting supplies, scouting, or sentry duty. There are twenty in all, and also includes a table for random generation. Also included are tables for random battlefield encounters, the economic impact of an army, and random severity of casualties. It also includes several sections on how the player characters interact with war and battle.

Next comes the monsters chapter. Five different monsters are shown here, all of which are used on the battle field.

The next to last chapter details several exotic weapons that are used often during war, and a system for experience to help dungeon masters hand out experience during large battles.

The last chapter gives tips on encouraging roleplaying during war, and alternate intimidation rules.

In conclusion,
Charge! is a good buy for its price, and is filled with good information. The artwork is mediocre, but I would suggest this as a buy for anyone who plans on using war in their campaigns.

(Product Summary)

Charge!
From: Living Imagination, Inc.
Written by: Harald Henning, Inger Henning, Steve Novella, Joseph Unfried Cover Art by: Jhoneil Centeno
Additional Art by: Marcio Fiorito
Retail Price: $ 19.95 (US)
Item Number: LI 1504
IBSN: 0-9712145-8-1
Website: www.livingimagination.com

Reviewed by: John Kirk

Added: June 16th 2004
Reviewer: John Kirk
Score:
Related Link: Living Imagination, Inc.
Hits: 160
Language: eng