Sword and Fist: Part 1

 Alright, it's the first true splatbook of 3rd edition! Splatbooks became a thing in 2nd edition starting with, ironically enough, The Complete Fighter's Handbook, which introduced kits and fighting styles, in an effort to make fighters more interesting. Spoiler: It didn't really work out. All classes ended up with their own kits, and wizards always got more cool stuff than the fighters in any edition.

So, this is the first opportunity for 3rd edition to show off what it can really do with an entire book devoted to helping players play fighters and monks to the fullest. The introduction to the book tells us right away that we're getting a bunch of crunchy additions, as well as some advice and fluff to help make fighters and monks more unique. But mostly crunch.

In fact, the first chapter is all about new feats and new ways to use skills. In fact, there are 31 new feats in this book, many of them being fighter bonus feats (the others being monk-specific). I won't go over them all, but I will note that the ranged feats from Dragon #274 don't appear here. I thought they did, but I was wrong. Well, it happens to everyone sometimes. The introduction to the chapter states that the ones that are fighter bonus feats are marked with an asterisk, which is about half of them. Combined with the plethora of fighter bonus feats in the core Player's Handbook, it's safe to say that you can make a whole bunch of different fighter characters who don't look or fight at all alike. That's a good thing. Meanwhile, monks don't get nearly as many feats as fighters, but they have plenty to choose from here. Their feats are pretty easy to recognize; they have names like Circle Kick, Eagle Claw Attack, and Mantis Leap.

The remainder of the first chapter discusses additional rules for existing skills, as well as adding a few new Knowledge subskills such as literature, mathematics, and politics. Well, I suppose, although fighters don't get Knowledge as a class skill. Monks do, though they only get Knowledge (arcana) as a class skill, so all of these would be cross-class for the two classes featured in this book. Not exactly an auspicious beginning.

Then we get new uses for Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, and Sense Motive. With the exception of Diplomacy for monks, none of these are class skills for either fighters or monks. Why put these new applications for skills in this book, when the information is far more useful to other classes, particularly rogues and bards? Put this in their book, not this one. The skill section is a definite miss for this book.

The next chapter is about new prestige classes. I want to give them more of an in-depth look, so I'll save that chapter for tomorrow. See you then.