RPG Review: Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
For Dungeons & Dragons 5E the team at Wizards of the Coast offered the core books (Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, Dungeon Master's Guide) and adventure modules (campaign books). The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide came out as the first supplement book that was not part of a campaign book. Compared to the other publications, this volume stands out as shockingly thin with the page count. But I do like the book and I recommend it for groups, especially if they have been playing 5E for a couple of years and they want to vary things up with official material.
The book functions well for giving new options but I wouldn't truly call it a 5E version of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide because it is actually really weak as far as providing detailed information about the cities and personalities that make up the world of Toril. Perhaps the folks at Wizards of the Coast felt there were enough old used books and previous materials published with info about the realms, but I know I was looking forward to more detailed updates before this book came out. Despite that failing, I still like this book; after all, I already own all of the old Forgotten Realms guides and my own multiverse version of this world has been updated via my group's RPG sessions. Additionally, the Storm King's Thunder campaign book gives more detailed info about locations in the Sword Coast region.
The included artwork in the book is absolutely beautiful. As with all of the D&D 5E published books, I have to say I really appreciate the efforts made to include amazing quality art. Unfortunately, the large map of the Sword Coast has the edge trapped in the binding; the artist offered the work on the internet so it is available elsewhere, but the printed version in the book is somewhat lacking. I also wish they provided more maps zoomed into the various regions like the did in the older editions.
One of the best selling points of this book is the inclusion of new player options and the spells at the book stand out as some of the most useful (and powerful) material available. With Booming Blade and the Green-Flame Blade spells, casters can do even more in combat. It's also really nice to see the "Green Flame" revolution slowly progressing in the printed materials.
While some of the character options barely get any room in the book, that's ok because the writers were able to easily condense material like the "Half-Elf Variants" options in a green box. Certainly DMs and players were already customizing in these ways, but having the official printed material allows players to get even some of the more stubborn anti-customization DMs onboard with more roleplay-oriented possibilities.
My players and I were happy to see options like the official 5E bladesinger and the battlerager. I also remember the UA "playtest" version of the storm sorcerer and was glad that it made the cut, even though it kind of blurs the line with the genasi options (since it sounds like someone with "storm sorcery" bloodline should probably also have genasi blood, but maybe it's diluted after generations?).
Even though many players don't get excited about new background options, I really like the flavor of the ones available in the SCAG. The "Far Traveler" and "Inheritor" appeal to me personally as options for characters I would want to play in the future.
Before getting to my overall rating, I want to once again emphasize how much I love the artwork in the book. I think this may be the first female Purple Dragon Knight we have seen and she looks glorious. The picture below inspires me to at least have this person as an NPC in a campaign.
Overall
Despite the book failing at the seemingly obvious mission of truly updating the Forgotten Realms setting for 5E and only providing a few new subclasses, I still want to give it a nice score. The artwork, the available options, and the ability to inspire (along with the new mechanical options) cause me to rate this work a 7 out of 10. We keep it on the shelf next to our table while we play and I recommend that each group (though not necessarily each person) should have one available (at least during character creation).
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