Bluffside:  City on the Edge

Format: Full Color Cover, B&W Interior, softcover Page Count: 142 Genre: sourcebook Campaign Setting: generic middle fantasy Developer: Thunderhead Games Publisher: Thunderhead Games Authors: JamesGovreau, CurtisBennett, AndrewTroman, et al  Product Code: TG1001

Overall rating:  2/5.

In its quest to be a truly modular sourcebook for any d20 setting, Bluffside musters only generic interest.  While this sourcebook may be useful for new GMs without the experience to bring life to a campaign, veteran gamers will find Bluffside predictable and over-explained to the point of removing creative thought entirely.

The city of Bluffside is a sprawling metropolis on the edge of a cliff divided into eight distinct districts.  The town grew rapidly around the adamandite mines in the vicinity.  The ancient history presented is painfully bland and generic as the book tries to make Bluffsidefit into the history of every conceivable d20 campaign setting.

There are 71 pages of "points of interest", plotting out almost every tavern, inn, business, or building.  While a dozen or so important places in the city are valuable tools for a GM, I doubt I need the more than 120+ descriptions found in the book.  Most of these points of interest lack any real meaning, and a GM could just as easily make up these places on the fly without having to look them up in a book.  Again, for a GM lacking in imagination, this may be useful.  Then again, if you lack imagination should you be running a game?

The chapter detailing the gods is wishy-washy and uninspired.  All the gods have generic names like "Builder", "Healer", or "Great Teacher".    The book refuses to take a position on whether or not there is a hierarchy among the gods.  Again, in its attempt to be a true modular setting, it tries to make sure the gods neatly coincide with the deities of any campaign setting.

There are 30 pages of NPC's listed and five pages of generic guards, leaving no room for error on the GMs part.  Gods forbid you have an adamantine Gate Guard confused with a Citadel Guard or Bluffside Regular Guard.

The book provides a few new races.  I don't include the Steam Gnomes, which seem to be just another name for tinkergnomes.  Most of the races offered seem too unbalancing to allow without any sort of level adjustments.  The Dragori (a reptilian race with three sub-types) receive bonuses to natural armor and the multiattack feat for free.  The SixanIeuna possess the ability to fly.  Sel'varahn can breath underwater.  With the except of the Nevae (a cross between an elf and a drow) and the Steam Gnomes, I would not allow any of these races in a campaign without some level adjustments.

The prestige classes are unnecessary and uninspired.  The Bluffside Mountain Ranger is a glorified ranger that hates goblinoids.  The cat burglar is just another thief with a few extra abilities.  The Explorer attempts to be a hybrid of a ranger and a druid but comes across as a thrown together class.  The Tunnel Fighter grants a lot of abilities that already belong to dwarves, such as stonecutting, but since the book claims most tunnel fighters are dwarves, I fail to see the point in the class.

There are a few interesting new spells and magical items offered in this book, but many of the spells and feats seem to be ripped off and reworded from other books.  The authors seemed to have gotten sloppy in this last section as well.   For example, one of the magical items is a ring of knocking, which is identical to a wand of knock.  Actually it is of less useful because the wearer actually has to TOUCH the locked door for it to work.  It only has 50 charges when made and cost 5000 gp.   I'd rather have the wand, so I don't have to touch the door and potentially be in the vicinity of a trap.  Also, it has a caster level requirement of 3rd and the prerequisite feat forge ring.  This doesn't make sense since forge ring requires the caster to be 12th level.

It is obvious from the amount of detail that the authors put a lot of work into Bluffside.  Unfortunately, instead of working toward creating a unique campaign setting with creative and interesting alternatives to what is already available on the market, they chose to make a "one-size-fits-all" city that lacks a passion and spirit of its own.

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Originally reviewed for Gaming Frontiers Magazine