I saw this on the shelf at a Half Price Books store recently.

lots of flavorful melee options
interesting HP mechanics
fun to play, a bit different from d&d

MAGE CLASS DOESN'T WORK AND IS BROKEN

CRITS DISMANTLE THE GAME IN ITS LATER STAGES SINCE YOUR CREATURES HAVE MORE VITALITY THAN WOUNDS

>>49630275
How is the mage class broken? It seems fine from my experience with the system.

Another d20-based fantasy heartbreaker that wants to be "D&D but better" but completely fails to attract any players.

>>49630247

Basically they took the 3.x D&D system, tore the whole thing down, rebuilt it from the ground up with math that works better, did away with all the feat tax/trap option horseshit, and made a crunchy character-buildy fantasy RPG that's actually solid, with a great martial/caster balance, with a wide variety of martial styles that are powerful and unique.
But they don't put out endless expansions and modules and adventure paths, so nobody plays it.

To address the above: Mages aren't broken. They're jack of all trades, master of none -- magic is pretty good at healing vitality, though wounds are better served by a proper healer. Outside of healing, magic is only ever about 80% as good as a character built to do something. Charm spells are a poor substitute for a Courtier's wit, for instance.

Vitality does get a little crazy at higher levels, and crits are one way to work around it, as is using the stress track, or just reducing high level vitality. This is a legitimate wart, but not a deal-breaker for anyone, really.

>>49630455
That Anon might be referring to SPELLBOUND NEVER.
Or I'm just giving him way too much credit.

>>49630247

IMO it's a book that is the best at everything 3.x, but there's a ton of fiddly rules hidden in random places in the book. Needs an SRD badly.

Great game, though.

>>49630247

Have you ever thought to yourself, D&D 3e needs more rules, and to be much, much worse organized? Then Fantasycraft is the game for you!

You can play a motherfucking dragon.

>>49630838
Honestly, it's only "more rules" in the most meaninglessly literal assessment of such.

Yeah, if you tally up the number of various rules there are, it's definitely got more than 3.5. But because those rules are, individually, much more simple, streamlined, and intuitive, it ends up being a much smoother system.

It is a fucking nightmare and a half to figure out when you're first getting into it, make no mistake, but that's because the book is atrociously poorly organized. Once you've actually gotten the full picture and figured out where everything is, it all fits together into something much sleeker and less clunky than 3.5.

>>49630247
If you can stand d20-based games, Fantasy Craft is the best Not!D&D d20-based game. Martials are powerful, feats are worth taking (too many feats are worth taking, really), and NPC creation is easy for the GM.