What do you think?
Rate this book
Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition
Guía del aventurero de la Costa de la Espada
Bienvenidos a la Costa de la Espada
La Costa de la Espada, una región de los Reinos Olvidados, cuenta con ejemplos sobresalientes de civilización, lugares peligrosos en los que abunda el mal y,
rodeándolo todo, una naturaleza salvaje que ofrece oportunidades y desafíos a los exploradores.
La Guía del Aventurero de la Costa de la Espada es un recurso valioso tanto para Dungeon Masters como para jugadores. Además de describir a los pueblos y emplazamientos de la Costa de la Espada, el libro contiene una gran variedad de opciones para personajes, que fascinarán e inspirarán a todos los grupos de aventureros.
Este libro se usa en conjunto con el Player’s Handbook, el Monster Manual, y el Dungeon Master’s Guide. Ofrece la ambientación, historia y opciones para personajes necesarias para jugar a D&D en cualquier parte de la Costa de la Espada de Faerûn.
La Costa de la Espada, una región de los Reinos Olvidados, cuenta con ejemplos sobresalientes de civilización, lugares peligrosos en los que abunda el mal y,
rodeándolo todo, una naturaleza salvaje que ofrece oportunidades y desafíos a los exploradores.
La Guía del Aventurero de la Costa de la Espada es un recurso valioso tanto para Dungeon Masters como para jugadores. Además de describir a los pueblos y emplazamientos de la Costa de la Espada, el libro contiene una gran variedad de opciones para personajes, que fascinarán e inspirarán a todos los grupos de aventureros.
Este libro se usa en conjunto con el Player’s Handbook, el Monster Manual, y el Dungeon Master’s Guide. Ofrece la ambientación, historia y opciones para personajes necesarias para jugar a D&D en cualquier parte de la Costa de la Espada de Faerûn.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published November 3, 2015
93 people are currently reading
871 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews
August 12, 2017
As a guide to the Forgotten Realms, this book isn't entirely successful. A wide variety of places are covered, but the descriptions manage to be simultaneously both shallow and confusing. The Realms have been subject to a variety of earthshaking events and wars and mythic struggles, and none of them are covered in enough detail to be very comprehensible to those not already acquainted with the setting. The book seems more like an update to the setting than an introduction.
The second half of the book, with expanded character options, has more utility and is easier for the neophyte to understand. Players looking to add some Forgotten Realms flavor to their characters will find this book useful. Dungeon Masters hoping to set a campaign in the setting will likely have to resort to books from previous editions of the game for additional detail.
The second half of the book, with expanded character options, has more utility and is easier for the neophyte to understand. Players looking to add some Forgotten Realms flavor to their characters will find this book useful. Dungeon Masters hoping to set a campaign in the setting will likely have to resort to books from previous editions of the game for additional detail.
January 17, 2024
I was a Greyhawk guy in 2e and 3e and decided maybe it was time for a fresh start so I grabbed this with an eye toward running 5e adventures in the Forgotten Realms. I'm not going to say this is bad but it's not great.
I don't know who the audience for this is supposed to be. There is info given for a lot of locations but all of it is pretty high level. There's no map that shows where all of the locations are in relation to each other. You can piece together some of it from the tiny maps but it's not the same. Even the city maps don't have keyed locations.
The background material for the setting isn't bad but, again, it's a very high level. There are no NPCs detailed so is this supposed to be a high level overview for players? There are some new PC options but most of them have been reprinted in other places.
I guess my main complaint with this is I don't know what it's supposed to be. I only knew a little about the Forgotten Realms setting before I picked this up and I only know a thimbleful more after reading this. I'm not going to say it's impossible to run a Forgotten Realms adventure with this book but I don't think you should and I'm definitely not.
I don't know who the audience for this is supposed to be. There is info given for a lot of locations but all of it is pretty high level. There's no map that shows where all of the locations are in relation to each other. You can piece together some of it from the tiny maps but it's not the same. Even the city maps don't have keyed locations.
The background material for the setting isn't bad but, again, it's a very high level. There are no NPCs detailed so is this supposed to be a high level overview for players? There are some new PC options but most of them have been reprinted in other places.
I guess my main complaint with this is I don't know what it's supposed to be. I only knew a little about the Forgotten Realms setting before I picked this up and I only know a thimbleful more after reading this. I'm not going to say it's impossible to run a Forgotten Realms adventure with this book but I don't think you should and I'm definitely not.
February 22, 2017
Weakest 5e offering so far in my opinion but still serves a purpose. It's definitely not a must-own product, but it can certainly help anyone interested in getting a better feel for the Sword Coast in the Forgotten Realms setting.
January 11, 2016
Ring Side Report- RPG Review of Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
Originally posted at Throat Punch Games, a new idea everyday!
Product-Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
System- DnD 5e
Producer- Wizards of the Coast
Price- $36
TL; DR-A doughnut-great fluff, but no crunch! 87%
Basics-Welcome to the Forgotten Realms! The Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide is the first player and dungeonmaster book for DnD5e. It focuses on the world of the Forgotten Realms and more specifically the Sword Coast. The book builds the current Realms and provides the standing of the world, as well as giving players some new backgrounds, class archetypes, and race options.
Mechanics or Crunch-The best description of the mechanics in this book is “What mechanics?” Most of the crunch in this book is confined to one chapter. It’s a decent chapter, but it only supports a few classes with some classes not receiving any new toys. They do get some Forgotten Realms specific story, but no new crunch/mechanics to drive it home. This book also only has one feat in it, and that is an optional feat. There were high expectations for this book, and I feel it didn't meet them. What’s here is good, but there is just not enough here to really make this worth it for every crunch heavy gamer. 3.75/5
Theme or Fluff-I love the Forgotten Realms, and this is a decent introduction to a part of it. As the title suggests, this book focuses on the Sword Coast. What the book focuses on is great! Each area gets a great description really building out the world in interesting ways and telling how the Realms have changed since 4th edition. However, it mentions the rest of the world. That’s good, but they don’t provide a map the the rest of the world. That’s my main problem with what is here. There are parts mentioned in a sentence that are not shown. The previous editions’ Realms books showed me the world,gave it a one line description, and then left it at that. This book doesn’t even give me the geography past the coast. This wouldn’t be a problem except the novels, adventures, and the Adventurer’s League all take place in the parts of world not covered in depth by this book. 4.75/5
Execution-This book covers a ton of ground, and it does it reasonably well. Everything has pictures, which is awesome, so the book sufficiently breaks up the text. There are a few walls of text though. The art is good, the font is nice, and the maps are amazing. I’d like this book to be a bit thicker to give space for more breaks and more information, as well as to justify the price a bit. However, I liked the way this book was laid out and built overall. 4.5/5
Summary-I wasn’t thrilled with this book. The theme is great. New players in the Realms will get a ton out of this book. Even people from 4th edition will have a lot to learn about the new realms. The overall execution of the book is great, if a tad pricey. However, the biggest problem is the lack of mechanics. This is the first real expansion to the system, and it doesn’t do or provide much expansion to the system. This book isn’t bad, but stacked up against the core books, I wasn’t impressed with this book. 87%
Originally posted at Throat Punch Games, a new idea everyday!
Product-Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
System- DnD 5e
Producer- Wizards of the Coast
Price- $36
TL; DR-A doughnut-great fluff, but no crunch! 87%
Basics-Welcome to the Forgotten Realms! The Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide is the first player and dungeonmaster book for DnD5e. It focuses on the world of the Forgotten Realms and more specifically the Sword Coast. The book builds the current Realms and provides the standing of the world, as well as giving players some new backgrounds, class archetypes, and race options.
Mechanics or Crunch-The best description of the mechanics in this book is “What mechanics?” Most of the crunch in this book is confined to one chapter. It’s a decent chapter, but it only supports a few classes with some classes not receiving any new toys. They do get some Forgotten Realms specific story, but no new crunch/mechanics to drive it home. This book also only has one feat in it, and that is an optional feat. There were high expectations for this book, and I feel it didn't meet them. What’s here is good, but there is just not enough here to really make this worth it for every crunch heavy gamer. 3.75/5
Theme or Fluff-I love the Forgotten Realms, and this is a decent introduction to a part of it. As the title suggests, this book focuses on the Sword Coast. What the book focuses on is great! Each area gets a great description really building out the world in interesting ways and telling how the Realms have changed since 4th edition. However, it mentions the rest of the world. That’s good, but they don’t provide a map the the rest of the world. That’s my main problem with what is here. There are parts mentioned in a sentence that are not shown. The previous editions’ Realms books showed me the world,gave it a one line description, and then left it at that. This book doesn’t even give me the geography past the coast. This wouldn’t be a problem except the novels, adventures, and the Adventurer’s League all take place in the parts of world not covered in depth by this book. 4.75/5
Execution-This book covers a ton of ground, and it does it reasonably well. Everything has pictures, which is awesome, so the book sufficiently breaks up the text. There are a few walls of text though. The art is good, the font is nice, and the maps are amazing. I’d like this book to be a bit thicker to give space for more breaks and more information, as well as to justify the price a bit. However, I liked the way this book was laid out and built overall. 4.5/5
Summary-I wasn’t thrilled with this book. The theme is great. New players in the Realms will get a ton out of this book. Even people from 4th edition will have a lot to learn about the new realms. The overall execution of the book is great, if a tad pricey. However, the biggest problem is the lack of mechanics. This is the first real expansion to the system, and it doesn’t do or provide much expansion to the system. This book isn’t bad, but stacked up against the core books, I wasn’t impressed with this book. 87%
April 5, 2017
The first major expansion for the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons game, produced with the fine people at Green Ronin (creators of the Mutants & Masterminds RPG). The book presents an overview of the Forgotten Realms setting as it exists in the 5E era, with a wealth of setting details and a number of new character options.
The first two-thirds of the book are dedicated to the Forgotten Realms proper. First we get a very broad overview of the setting's geography, history, and particulars, including about 20 pages dedicated to the setting's gods. Most of this is fine, with the deity details the most interesting. Next, various narrators take us on a tour of the Sword Coast, the main focus of the setting in 5E, which is packed with neat details and adventure hooks. Some of these locations will be familiar to players of the D&D computer games of the 1990s and 2000s, like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter. DMs might not get enough detail to easily run adventures in these locations, but there's still plenty there to work with, and it's a solid and interesting read.
The final third of the book has the most general appeal, a bunch of new character options. They initially go over the Realms versions of the core races, with a few new variants (such as half-elves with specific elvish ancestry, and the return of the Planescape-style tiefling). Even better for general players, however, are the new class options. All of these are interesting, with the Sun Soul monk (monks that can fire anime-style energy blasts) and the Bladesinging wizard being my favorites, while options like the Arcana cleric, Purple Dragon Knight (basically a 5E take on 4E's warlord class), Oath of the Crown paladin, and Mastermind rogue are very useful additions to the game. After that we get a number of interesting new backgrounds, although a few are tied too strongly to the Realms setting for general use, and I was a little disappointed that most wound up being just variations of the Player's Handbook options. Lastly, we get an appendix with advice for converting these options for use in other D&D settings and homebrew worlds, which was much appreciated.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, although I feel like it could have been more than it was. That said, the intended audience was likely players rather than DMs. While not an essential addition to D&D 5th Edition, there's a lot in here worth reading, and it's strongly recommended. (A-)
The first two-thirds of the book are dedicated to the Forgotten Realms proper. First we get a very broad overview of the setting's geography, history, and particulars, including about 20 pages dedicated to the setting's gods. Most of this is fine, with the deity details the most interesting. Next, various narrators take us on a tour of the Sword Coast, the main focus of the setting in 5E, which is packed with neat details and adventure hooks. Some of these locations will be familiar to players of the D&D computer games of the 1990s and 2000s, like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter. DMs might not get enough detail to easily run adventures in these locations, but there's still plenty there to work with, and it's a solid and interesting read.
The final third of the book has the most general appeal, a bunch of new character options. They initially go over the Realms versions of the core races, with a few new variants (such as half-elves with specific elvish ancestry, and the return of the Planescape-style tiefling). Even better for general players, however, are the new class options. All of these are interesting, with the Sun Soul monk (monks that can fire anime-style energy blasts) and the Bladesinging wizard being my favorites, while options like the Arcana cleric, Purple Dragon Knight (basically a 5E take on 4E's warlord class), Oath of the Crown paladin, and Mastermind rogue are very useful additions to the game. After that we get a number of interesting new backgrounds, although a few are tied too strongly to the Realms setting for general use, and I was a little disappointed that most wound up being just variations of the Player's Handbook options. Lastly, we get an appendix with advice for converting these options for use in other D&D settings and homebrew worlds, which was much appreciated.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, although I feel like it could have been more than it was. That said, the intended audience was likely players rather than DMs. While not an essential addition to D&D 5th Edition, there's a lot in here worth reading, and it's strongly recommended. (A-)
May 27, 2019
I'm planning to run the "Heroes of Baldur's Gate" adventure and wanted to get a refresher on the Sword Coast. I finally got around to pick up this sourcebook, and it is solidly okay.
I admittedly skipped a large chunk in the middle because I wasn't getting much from it. This book is stuck in an uncomfortable valley between a survey and an in-depth study of the Sword Coast. It's too long to be a survey, so it's easy to get lost in the lore and forget most of what you read immediately. It's too short on any one particular section to actually flesh out an entire adventure setting.
If you're looking for more depth to bake into your game, I recommend reading Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, which has great depth on Elves, Dwaves, Halflings, and Gnomes. Or maybe just play one of the video games (e.g. Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights) to really live it.
If you're looking for a survey of the world, just browse the Forgotten Realms Wikia site with a map handy to connect the dots
I haven't played with the character options in the back, though they also just seem fine.
I admittedly skipped a large chunk in the middle because I wasn't getting much from it. This book is stuck in an uncomfortable valley between a survey and an in-depth study of the Sword Coast. It's too long to be a survey, so it's easy to get lost in the lore and forget most of what you read immediately. It's too short on any one particular section to actually flesh out an entire adventure setting.
If you're looking for more depth to bake into your game, I recommend reading Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, which has great depth on Elves, Dwaves, Halflings, and Gnomes. Or maybe just play one of the video games (e.g. Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights) to really live it.
If you're looking for a survey of the world, just browse the Forgotten Realms Wikia site with a map handy to connect the dots
I haven't played with the character options in the back, though they also just seem fine.
November 10, 2015
As the first Forgotten Realms gaming book published since D&D 5th Edition went live I had high expectations. It's a pretty good book. I puzzled by the wealth of FR generic information (lands and races) and the relative lack of detailed Sword Coast Information. As with any gaming book I expected both background - world (fluff) information as well as crunch (gaming specific information). The book is well balanced on fluff vs crunch - I always like both. The new races and class specific additions are FR appropriate. The Purple Knight Archetype seems an odd addition since Cormyr isn't a part of the Sword Coast and plenty of other concepts from the past are available for 5E treatment. The lack of a map is a disappointment with all the changes of the last few years. The biggest disappointment is the price, a retail price of 39.95 seems a bit steep to me (for the page count and lack of a map).
February 23, 2022
Not what I thought it was going to be. The vast majority of this guide is just "hey the Forgotten Realms world is slightly different in these specific ways." There's a teeny tiny bit of actual content - which is good content! - that is overshadowed by the minutiae of which race is allowed to do what in this specific setting that any DM is gonna tweak anyway.
Love the backgrounds, the subclasses are okay but mostly (again) descriptions of worldsetting stuff rather than playable info, the subraces are boring and the 4 new spells are just like okay.
Love the backgrounds, the subclasses are okay but mostly (again) descriptions of worldsetting stuff rather than playable info, the subraces are boring and the 4 new spells are just like okay.
September 24, 2020
I haven't ventured into the Forgotten Realms alot before so I can't speak much for the ongoing lore side of things. For a DM this book is great, all the info you could need for a campaign setting. For a player, you'd probably think your character isn't *that* versed in the world lore. So you'd end up skipping a lot of the lore that isn't directly of use to you and your character right away. That said, isn't that true for just about any sourcebook, though? I'd say the most useful allround info is all of the customisation options in the back. But it's a fine supplement as is.
February 19, 2021
The content that is included is quite good, but this book is very short for the price. This is not a 5th edition "Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting" tome, but a collection of some useful area briefs, character options, and a smattering of details.
June 15, 2019
Very nice addition for those who wants to play in the Forgotten Realms.
May 15, 2025
The geography drags on a bit but it picks up momentum when it touches upon the races and classes. Neat!
May 10, 2020
A note up front
I do want to lead with the fact that this is a great resource with a lot of information about the Forgotten Realms. I'd recommend reading it, especially to get an idea of what kind of character you might want to play! It's got a lot of detail on the world, its gods, locations (with a focus on the sword coast) and has suggestions for more setting-specific classes, races, and backgrounds you can choose instead of having to go off the Player's Handbook alone.
That said, I often found myself frustrated reading it that the book it claimed to be in the title wasn't actually the book it was. With a title like "Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide" it's positioning itself as a travel guide with a focus on explaining the environment of the Sword Coast itself, but while it was in there, that was the minority.
I'm going to get specifics with my criticisms not because I want to rip this supplement apart (I don't! It was useful! There was a lot in it I enjoyed!) but because I want fellow readers to go in knowing what bits to look for and what not to in order to avoid my same frustrations. And also, in the off chance the designers/editors read this, I want it to be detailed feedback they can potentially use for future supplements since I know that game designers don't often have focus groups of end readers (hi! Sorry this is so long! Again, I definitely don't mean to be ripping this apart here in any way, it was very useful! I just kept finding ways it was butting up against my expectations or I found that it wasn't fulfilling my needs entirely).
My expectations
In earlier D&D editions, you could get the big core books hardcover, but also softcover versions of smaller supplemental books like the "Deities and Demigods" supplement book which explains all the available gods for D&D settings and who follows them, or Campaign Settings books for specific worlds (ie Forgotten Realm Adventures, Dragonlance Adventures, Grayhawk Adventures, Ravenloft: Domains of Dread).
And frankly, I miss that, because when I pick up a D&D supplement to read, it's because its title has indicated this book fulfills a need I have in my gaming life, and having to wade through things that seem totally unrelated to the title is a bit frustrating. It felt like there should have been a general Forgotten Realms book, and then an additional supplement focused on the Sword Coast, and a Deities and Demigods supplement that included gods of various settings, or some combination thereof.
I guess the tl;dr of my reoccurring frustration is that the title promises me that this book is about information within a specific category (The Sword Coast), but the book isn't actually about that Category, it just includes that category in a larger amount than other categories. I picked this up as someone GMing a campaign set in the Sword Coast and playing characters from the Sword Coast. So by reading it start to back with the assumption this would be specifically about the Sword Coast instead of emphasizing the Sword Coast, kept alternating me between genuine enjoyment of the content, confusion ("Wait, is that on the Sword Coast? I thought that was farther away") and frustration ("When am I getting to the Sword Coast specifics?").
More detail on the book itself
The flow of the guide is as below, with my notes on each section.
CHAPTER 1 - general Realms-specific overview (18 pages)
- This includes the sections "Welcome to the Realms", "Toril and its Lands", "Time in the Realms", A Brief History", and "Magic in the Realms": I'm putting all these parts together because they have to go together for any of them to make sense, and I wish these had been melded into one part in actuality instead of being broken out into subsections because together they form a summary of the entire history of the full Forgotten Realms setting, with no particular focus to the Sword Coast.
I do think a history of the realms is important in understanding any one part of it, so I agree it'd be hard to present a guide to a specific location without some general overview. This content should have been here in some form, but if there was any part of the book I felt needed revisions, it was this one. The history was confusingly written and weirdly devoid of context, and bounced around between locations without giving us a better grasp of the timeline of events and how the world worked as a whole, let alone its immediate impact on the Sword Coast. As an opening thesis to a book called "The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide", it lacked direction and didn't really let me know what to expect.
I think this could have been improved by starting with a map of the full world (there wasn't one -- there was a sword coast map and a northern faerun map, but no world map, which meant I was googling where Thay and Kara-Tur was and so on since it went over world history in general). It would also have been helped by focusing on a holistic timeline rather than scattering it between different locations and subject headings. A holistic view would allow me to see where the rise and fall of empires etc were in relationship to each other and better understand what went into the current character of the cities and locales in Faerun in general as well as on the Sword's Coast.
The holistic view would have also made it easier to understand what our players are actually dealing with and what their lives have been like. Again: Keeping in mind I picked the supplement up to read about the Sword Coast, as a DM running a 5e game and a player running in them, I feel it's important to know the environment of like... for example, what it was like during the Sundering for your average person. Your character just came out of the Spellplagues - what was that experience? Did it or did it not affect their upbringing? I don't think any of my fellow players are aware that 5 years ago several of the major cities were trashed by earthquakes, because we picked up in 5e either new or after a long break -- in my case, I stopped playing after AD&D 2nd ed and picked up again in 5e -- and I don't want that information buried, I want a clear and concise understanding of what it would have been like as an adventurer to live through those times.
- Religion and gods/goddesses in the realms. (25 pages)
In its current form this felt to me to be extraneous to the purpose of the book. I understand including it: your characters probably worship someone or several someones (especially if they are a cleric or paladin) and the gods are obviously active in the realms since they were walking around in it (this again could have had more focus in the history section). But either this should have been shortened considerably into a briefer list for players to start with and research further into elsewhere (perhaps in a Deities and Demigods book, for example), or it should have been focused on and expanded more -- tell us the history of that god and how they relate to the Sword Coast specifically (there are a few cases of this, as with Asmodeus, but they are few or far between).
To illustrate what I mean, here's an example of something I'd have loved to see mentioned in this book, but which I found out about elsewhere: the drow goddess Eilistraee was recently walking around under Waterdeep's City Walls and caused a fairly significant shift in the view of Non-Evil drow aboveground due to them actually making a legit temple to her in response to this, and this temple was permitted to be hosted in Waterdeep after support from a high elf noble member of the council. That changes a reader's understanding of the drow, of Waterdeep and what it's willing to accept, and ties into the explanation of the gods. However, she wasn't mentioned in any detail and her connection to the Sword Coast wasn't in this book.
The other thing I'd like was, again, more tie in to the lived history players would be dealing with so they could understand it better. A lot of gods apparently died recently and were resurrected or melded with other gods, and the specifics of this are things I'm finding out about by wiki diving instead of reading about in this book. I'd just have liked to see it be more specific to the experience an Adventurer on the Sword Coast might have had in the last 10-20 years in relating to the gods, their appearance, and their worship.
CHAPTER 2: The Sword Coast and the North (60 pgs)
This was the section I was reading for, and I had imagined the whole book would be this section when I picked it up -- that was essentially the resource I was hoping for from the title. It was great, and I would have loved to have even more detail. I was envisioning something like Volo's Enchiridion of Waterdeep but for every major location (so going into the character of the city, coinage, navigation, some cool tourist spots that GMs or Players could mine for ideas), and this was significantly lighter on the information than that was. It was still a really great read and I loved digging into this part significantly (shoutout to Purple Rocks for coming out of NOWHERE with that one, I wasn't ready), but it had two things I would have loved to see improved:
- Organization & Flow - it was broken out into various 'categories' (The Lord's Alliance, Dwarfholds of the North, Island Kingdoms etc) and then they were alphabetized within that. I get the purpose of that for quickly flipping to and looking things up, but in terms of envisioning how to actively use it in-setting, the understanding of what it would be like to travel in that space was deprioritized since it was geographically all over the place. Since there's an index we could use to quickly find a page, I'd rather the geography was emphasized in terms of organization rather than the name of the city -- start at the north or south and move from there geographically. Or, if you were going to keep the alphabetizing, it would have been greatly helpful to pop a map on each sidebar showing the full Sword Coast and put a star over the current location to provide context.
- Lack of in-depth information - it was a good overview of a lot of locations, but I wanted to dig in to the understanding of what it was like there. For example, I know (through outside reading) that there's a LOT going on in Luskan right now behind the scenes that weren't even hinted at in its write-up. In addition: what are the political environments like and how does this affect adventuring on the Sword Coast? Sticking with the Luskan example, the start of the Lords' Alliance section mentions keeping Luskan's ambitions in check, and then Luskan is not mentioned anywhere in the individual city sections of the Lords' Alliance, and its ambitions toward the Lords' Alliance were not mentioned anywhere in Luskan's section.
(I loved, btw, that different narrative voices were describing the different locations! I just wish they were all equally readable, because unfortunately, Andwe and Aedyn were a bit more narratively floral and thus harder to follow than Gardorra and Oshgir)
CHAPTER 3: Races of the Realms (15 pages)
- A good summary of how the races from the phb are represented in the general culture of the Realms. It went enough into deities that I found it a bit repetitive from earlier, and would probably have preferred the earlier bit get shortened and worked in here instead. It was also very generally-realms focused again, but I didn't mind that here (different peoples travel, cities are melting pots of different cultures).
CHAPTER 4: Classes (21 pages)
- This, like the races section, was meant to be a view of how the standard classes were represented in the Realms, but was a bit more frustrating because this felt it should be more Swords-Coast specific. I wasn't sure why we were, for example, getting full write-ups in the Sword Coast Guide of the Purple Dragon Knights of Cormyr. This was the point where I started to feel like the book was silently explaining to me that we weren't going to get a general Forgotten Realms guide to the rest of these realms in 5e, because if we were, these classes would have been saved for that.
CHAPTER 5: Backgrounds (9 pages)
- These were great! I have no criticism here. If anything I'd just have wanted even more of them, especially if this is the main FR campaign book we're going to get, since most of the adventure modules are set in the Forgotten Realms.
APPENDIX: Class Options in Other Worlds (2 pages)
- Also very neat! Useful for adaptation (I wonder if anyone looking for a conversion will think to look in this book since it says it's something very specific, but honestly, if someone has read this book and later starts a campaign in another setting, it's a nice to have).
My general summary, tl;dr
Again -- I want to stress this book WAS very informative, and I wanted to lay these details out mostly in case they are useful. There was a lot I enjoyed in this book. It's a solid 4star, and this review is just an attempt for me to wade through and break out expectations vs results for other people's use so they can avoid having their goals frutsrated.
As I mentioned, by the time I got to the Classes chapter, I began to feel strongly as if this book was silently, subtly informing me that we weren't going to get a general Forgotten Realms guide to the rest of these realms in 5e. This felt especially weird since most of the supplements we've got so far are general world guides (Eberron, Ravnica, Theros, Wildemount).
I wouldn't mind if this were the case, actually! But I would have preferred to know going in that this was The Guide to the Forgotten Realms, and just have an added note early on that since most adventurers hail from the Swords Coast, there is a specific focus on the Sword Coast that is greater than the other cultures of the Realms. That would have solved basically all my frustrations with the book since I'd be reading it from the right perspective and would know to flip for the sections I was specifically looking for with the Sword Coast, rather than go in from the perspective "this is going to teach me specifically about Adventuring Life On The Sword Coast" and getting stymied as I read it front to back.
As is, without that understanding up front, I would have preferred a more focused text and/or additional supplements. Don't get me wrong -- I love not having to buy multiple books! But it was marketed in one way, so although I found a lot of unexpected use in this, I was definitely approaching it with a different need than the one the book wanted to address.
I do want to lead with the fact that this is a great resource with a lot of information about the Forgotten Realms. I'd recommend reading it, especially to get an idea of what kind of character you might want to play! It's got a lot of detail on the world, its gods, locations (with a focus on the sword coast) and has suggestions for more setting-specific classes, races, and backgrounds you can choose instead of having to go off the Player's Handbook alone.
That said, I often found myself frustrated reading it that the book it claimed to be in the title wasn't actually the book it was. With a title like "Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide" it's positioning itself as a travel guide with a focus on explaining the environment of the Sword Coast itself, but while it was in there, that was the minority.
I'm going to get specifics with my criticisms not because I want to rip this supplement apart (I don't! It was useful! There was a lot in it I enjoyed!) but because I want fellow readers to go in knowing what bits to look for and what not to in order to avoid my same frustrations. And also, in the off chance the designers/editors read this, I want it to be detailed feedback they can potentially use for future supplements since I know that game designers don't often have focus groups of end readers (hi! Sorry this is so long! Again, I definitely don't mean to be ripping this apart here in any way, it was very useful! I just kept finding ways it was butting up against my expectations or I found that it wasn't fulfilling my needs entirely).
My expectations
In earlier D&D editions, you could get the big core books hardcover, but also softcover versions of smaller supplemental books like the "Deities and Demigods" supplement book which explains all the available gods for D&D settings and who follows them, or Campaign Settings books for specific worlds (ie Forgotten Realm Adventures, Dragonlance Adventures, Grayhawk Adventures, Ravenloft: Domains of Dread).
And frankly, I miss that, because when I pick up a D&D supplement to read, it's because its title has indicated this book fulfills a need I have in my gaming life, and having to wade through things that seem totally unrelated to the title is a bit frustrating. It felt like there should have been a general Forgotten Realms book, and then an additional supplement focused on the Sword Coast, and a Deities and Demigods supplement that included gods of various settings, or some combination thereof.
I guess the tl;dr of my reoccurring frustration is that the title promises me that this book is about information within a specific category (The Sword Coast), but the book isn't actually about that Category, it just includes that category in a larger amount than other categories. I picked this up as someone GMing a campaign set in the Sword Coast and playing characters from the Sword Coast. So by reading it start to back with the assumption this would be specifically about the Sword Coast instead of emphasizing the Sword Coast, kept alternating me between genuine enjoyment of the content, confusion ("Wait, is that on the Sword Coast? I thought that was farther away") and frustration ("When am I getting to the Sword Coast specifics?").
More detail on the book itself
The flow of the guide is as below, with my notes on each section.
CHAPTER 1 - general Realms-specific overview (18 pages)
- This includes the sections "Welcome to the Realms", "Toril and its Lands", "Time in the Realms", A Brief History", and "Magic in the Realms": I'm putting all these parts together because they have to go together for any of them to make sense, and I wish these had been melded into one part in actuality instead of being broken out into subsections because together they form a summary of the entire history of the full Forgotten Realms setting, with no particular focus to the Sword Coast.
I do think a history of the realms is important in understanding any one part of it, so I agree it'd be hard to present a guide to a specific location without some general overview. This content should have been here in some form, but if there was any part of the book I felt needed revisions, it was this one. The history was confusingly written and weirdly devoid of context, and bounced around between locations without giving us a better grasp of the timeline of events and how the world worked as a whole, let alone its immediate impact on the Sword Coast. As an opening thesis to a book called "The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide", it lacked direction and didn't really let me know what to expect.
I think this could have been improved by starting with a map of the full world (there wasn't one -- there was a sword coast map and a northern faerun map, but no world map, which meant I was googling where Thay and Kara-Tur was and so on since it went over world history in general). It would also have been helped by focusing on a holistic timeline rather than scattering it between different locations and subject headings. A holistic view would allow me to see where the rise and fall of empires etc were in relationship to each other and better understand what went into the current character of the cities and locales in Faerun in general as well as on the Sword's Coast.
The holistic view would have also made it easier to understand what our players are actually dealing with and what their lives have been like. Again: Keeping in mind I picked the supplement up to read about the Sword Coast, as a DM running a 5e game and a player running in them, I feel it's important to know the environment of like... for example, what it was like during the Sundering for your average person. Your character just came out of the Spellplagues - what was that experience? Did it or did it not affect their upbringing? I don't think any of my fellow players are aware that 5 years ago several of the major cities were trashed by earthquakes, because we picked up in 5e either new or after a long break -- in my case, I stopped playing after AD&D 2nd ed and picked up again in 5e -- and I don't want that information buried, I want a clear and concise understanding of what it would have been like as an adventurer to live through those times.
- Religion and gods/goddesses in the realms. (25 pages)
In its current form this felt to me to be extraneous to the purpose of the book. I understand including it: your characters probably worship someone or several someones (especially if they are a cleric or paladin) and the gods are obviously active in the realms since they were walking around in it (this again could have had more focus in the history section). But either this should have been shortened considerably into a briefer list for players to start with and research further into elsewhere (perhaps in a Deities and Demigods book, for example), or it should have been focused on and expanded more -- tell us the history of that god and how they relate to the Sword Coast specifically (there are a few cases of this, as with Asmodeus, but they are few or far between).
To illustrate what I mean, here's an example of something I'd have loved to see mentioned in this book, but which I found out about elsewhere: the drow goddess Eilistraee was recently walking around under Waterdeep's City Walls and caused a fairly significant shift in the view of Non-Evil drow aboveground due to them actually making a legit temple to her in response to this, and this temple was permitted to be hosted in Waterdeep after support from a high elf noble member of the council. That changes a reader's understanding of the drow, of Waterdeep and what it's willing to accept, and ties into the explanation of the gods. However, she wasn't mentioned in any detail and her connection to the Sword Coast wasn't in this book.
The other thing I'd like was, again, more tie in to the lived history players would be dealing with so they could understand it better. A lot of gods apparently died recently and were resurrected or melded with other gods, and the specifics of this are things I'm finding out about by wiki diving instead of reading about in this book. I'd just have liked to see it be more specific to the experience an Adventurer on the Sword Coast might have had in the last 10-20 years in relating to the gods, their appearance, and their worship.
CHAPTER 2: The Sword Coast and the North (60 pgs)
This was the section I was reading for, and I had imagined the whole book would be this section when I picked it up -- that was essentially the resource I was hoping for from the title. It was great, and I would have loved to have even more detail. I was envisioning something like Volo's Enchiridion of Waterdeep but for every major location (so going into the character of the city, coinage, navigation, some cool tourist spots that GMs or Players could mine for ideas), and this was significantly lighter on the information than that was. It was still a really great read and I loved digging into this part significantly (shoutout to Purple Rocks for coming out of NOWHERE with that one, I wasn't ready), but it had two things I would have loved to see improved:
- Organization & Flow - it was broken out into various 'categories' (The Lord's Alliance, Dwarfholds of the North, Island Kingdoms etc) and then they were alphabetized within that. I get the purpose of that for quickly flipping to and looking things up, but in terms of envisioning how to actively use it in-setting, the understanding of what it would be like to travel in that space was deprioritized since it was geographically all over the place. Since there's an index we could use to quickly find a page, I'd rather the geography was emphasized in terms of organization rather than the name of the city -- start at the north or south and move from there geographically. Or, if you were going to keep the alphabetizing, it would have been greatly helpful to pop a map on each sidebar showing the full Sword Coast and put a star over the current location to provide context.
- Lack of in-depth information - it was a good overview of a lot of locations, but I wanted to dig in to the understanding of what it was like there. For example, I know (through outside reading) that there's a LOT going on in Luskan right now behind the scenes that weren't even hinted at in its write-up. In addition: what are the political environments like and how does this affect adventuring on the Sword Coast? Sticking with the Luskan example, the start of the Lords' Alliance section mentions keeping Luskan's ambitions in check, and then Luskan is not mentioned anywhere in the individual city sections of the Lords' Alliance, and its ambitions toward the Lords' Alliance were not mentioned anywhere in Luskan's section.
(I loved, btw, that different narrative voices were describing the different locations! I just wish they were all equally readable, because unfortunately, Andwe and Aedyn were a bit more narratively floral and thus harder to follow than Gardorra and Oshgir)
CHAPTER 3: Races of the Realms (15 pages)
- A good summary of how the races from the phb are represented in the general culture of the Realms. It went enough into deities that I found it a bit repetitive from earlier, and would probably have preferred the earlier bit get shortened and worked in here instead. It was also very generally-realms focused again, but I didn't mind that here (different peoples travel, cities are melting pots of different cultures).
CHAPTER 4: Classes (21 pages)
- This, like the races section, was meant to be a view of how the standard classes were represented in the Realms, but was a bit more frustrating because this felt it should be more Swords-Coast specific. I wasn't sure why we were, for example, getting full write-ups in the Sword Coast Guide of the Purple Dragon Knights of Cormyr. This was the point where I started to feel like the book was silently explaining to me that we weren't going to get a general Forgotten Realms guide to the rest of these realms in 5e, because if we were, these classes would have been saved for that.
CHAPTER 5: Backgrounds (9 pages)
- These were great! I have no criticism here. If anything I'd just have wanted even more of them, especially if this is the main FR campaign book we're going to get, since most of the adventure modules are set in the Forgotten Realms.
APPENDIX: Class Options in Other Worlds (2 pages)
- Also very neat! Useful for adaptation (I wonder if anyone looking for a conversion will think to look in this book since it says it's something very specific, but honestly, if someone has read this book and later starts a campaign in another setting, it's a nice to have).
My general summary, tl;dr
Again -- I want to stress this book WAS very informative, and I wanted to lay these details out mostly in case they are useful. There was a lot I enjoyed in this book. It's a solid 4star, and this review is just an attempt for me to wade through and break out expectations vs results for other people's use so they can avoid having their goals frutsrated.
As I mentioned, by the time I got to the Classes chapter, I began to feel strongly as if this book was silently, subtly informing me that we weren't going to get a general Forgotten Realms guide to the rest of these realms in 5e. This felt especially weird since most of the supplements we've got so far are general world guides (Eberron, Ravnica, Theros, Wildemount).
I wouldn't mind if this were the case, actually! But I would have preferred to know going in that this was The Guide to the Forgotten Realms, and just have an added note early on that since most adventurers hail from the Swords Coast, there is a specific focus on the Sword Coast that is greater than the other cultures of the Realms. That would have solved basically all my frustrations with the book since I'd be reading it from the right perspective and would know to flip for the sections I was specifically looking for with the Sword Coast, rather than go in from the perspective "this is going to teach me specifically about Adventuring Life On The Sword Coast" and getting stymied as I read it front to back.
As is, without that understanding up front, I would have preferred a more focused text and/or additional supplements. Don't get me wrong -- I love not having to buy multiple books! But it was marketed in one way, so although I found a lot of unexpected use in this, I was definitely approaching it with a different need than the one the book wanted to address.
September 2, 2016
Having initially perused this book more or less exclusively for rules updates, I thought it was a fairly mediocre contribution to 5e. The race updates were okay; the class modifications were fun but very uneven, and the lack of new spells or additions to some of the technical weak points in the game (Rangers, for example) were disappointments. I have been prompted to read the book much more thoroughly by the new Storm King module, however, digging through the descriptions of the various cities and townships, the racial communities, and the lore and history of the region. On the level of world building, this is a really fun book. It reminds me of the kind of depth and inspiration I am used to from White Wolf splatbooks--arming a DM with lots of creative story hooks and ideas without strong-arming or railroading. The interactivity between the content in this book and the Storm King module makes it all that much more enjoyable, and I have spent several days toting around both books and repeatedly cross-referencing. I won't give SCAG a full five stars based on the disappointments I mentioned earlier, but it's definitely a welcome addition to 5e, and I hope we receive a similar content supplement on the Moonsea and other regions in Faerun.
May 6, 2016
I was somewhat skeptical at first, but this won me over after a bit. The half (over half, really) of the book focuses on a brief overlook at the state of the northern portion of Faerun in the 5e timeline. While I do wish there was more here, it's still a breezy and interesting read. It bounces between several sections with different narrators—and it works! The second half is devoted to additional class options for the game: racial options, class archetypes, backgrounds, a handful of new spells, and so on. I was fairly neutral on this section at first glance, but after reading it in full, there's lots of good stuff here. The new class options are, for the most part, really fun. Even the ones that at first blush seem underpowered are still flavorful and a nice alternative to the usual glut of character specifics people pick (personal favorites are the two rogue options, swashbuckler and mastermind, and the bladesinger wizard focus).
I feel like I'm one of the few who actually like that Wizards isn't vomiting out sourcebook after sourcebook, but I do hope we see more of this sort of thing down the road.
I feel like I'm one of the few who actually like that Wizards isn't vomiting out sourcebook after sourcebook, but I do hope we see more of this sort of thing down the road.
June 21, 2020
Decent campaign setting for a specific region of the "Forgotten Realms." Has a brief overview of the world and then gets down to details of the region. In addition to geography, religion, politics, legends and the like, this book includes setting-specifics for races, classes as well as new subclasses, backgrounds etc. One aspect of this book that I liked was that much of the write-ups of the campaign setting were from the POV of a number of travelers, which allows them not to be considered "set in stone." On the other hand, like many other "traditional D&D" settings, I felt that the Sword Coast is excessively monster and magic-heavy, but that's just my opinion (and, I realize, not a popular one in this genre). Also, while I found the format decently presented, I'd have preferred if the author had included a timeline of major events as well.
UPDATE: 6/20/21 Picked up a hard copy at Crescent City Comics (previously just read the online version on D&D Beyond).
UPDATE: 6/20/21 Picked up a hard copy at Crescent City Comics (previously just read the online version on D&D Beyond).
February 15, 2017
This book is packed with lore. I'm still fairly new to D&D so most of the content about this place and this person group who did this thing or does these things was kind of over my head. However it was still interesting. I really got excited about the sub-classes, cantrips, and backgrounds that are added in this book that aren't in the Players Handbook.
All in all it is a useful book, but I don't think that it is necessarily crucial to have to start playing; perhaps good to invest in down the road. It is a great supplement to maybe give you ideas for content should you DM your own campaign. I still recommend it once the groundwork for how D&D 5e works is laid out a little.
All in all it is a useful book, but I don't think that it is necessarily crucial to have to start playing; perhaps good to invest in down the road. It is a great supplement to maybe give you ideas for content should you DM your own campaign. I still recommend it once the groundwork for how D&D 5e works is laid out a little.
January 14, 2016
First of all this is a good looking book, with an interesting look at the Forgotten Realms' history since the last couple of editions. and at its current geography, with focus on the Sword Coast. That said, the book felt a bit shallow and incomplete for the price. Frankly, if you happen to own the older Forgotten Realms (2nd or 3rd editions) I'm not sure this is that useful. Would be more attractive if it came with a poster version of the map...
May 5, 2017
I was really hoping for some in depth info in this one. We do get a lot to work with in terms of places and even deities, but it's only core information there isn't a lot of 'extra' to help give that extra push for those unfamiliar with the Sword Coast. I have a passable knowledge of the area from playing games and reading portions of books, so I can manage on just core knowledge but would have been nice to have a bit more.
September 11, 2020
Interesting, but overall this was a bit disappointing.
I played for several years in a Forgotten Realms campaign and enjoyed it enormously. In many ways this was just a superficial update, but even there it does not really offer enough information. As a quick introduction, it does rather leaves more out than it provides.
The new player options for characters was probably the best thing in the book.
Enjoyable, but needed more detail.
I played for several years in a Forgotten Realms campaign and enjoyed it enormously. In many ways this was just a superficial update, but even there it does not really offer enough information. As a quick introduction, it does rather leaves more out than it provides.
The new player options for characters was probably the best thing in the book.
Enjoyable, but needed more detail.
January 20, 2016
Not bad at all! Given that the majority of games I've played have been homebrews, it's fun to learn a setting that spans adventures (and even editions) for a change. Since the only campaigns I've DMed (and will likely continue to DM in the near future) are the official Wizards modules, knowing some extra flavor for Faerun will be super helpful.
May 22, 2017
Good coverage of the Sword coast. I wish it was a larger book with more details that have been provided in the past books about Faerun. The book has a lot of coverage of the deities of Faerun. If you are looking for a general book about Faerun I would not buy this. This book focuses very specifically on the sword coast and not the south or east.
August 5, 2017
A very informative fluff book that gave me some good ideas for my upcoming campaign. I like how they don't give you everything in the fiction, treating it more like a story. It was a nice touch and it kept me wanting to know more. The crunch at the end is ok, nothing that particularly grabbed me there apart from the backgrounds.
February 7, 2016
A slightly expensive, but good expansion to the materials presented in the D&D 5E core rule books. This source book is worth the scratch if you're running your campaign in The Forgotten Realms, and also good for world-building inspiration if you're not.
May 3, 2016
Some fun updates in here. Not a lot of variation on the current classes in 5e, but I was happy to learn most of the new lore. (which effectively seems to be retconning many things back to a similar 2e-3e status--which is awesome)
January 4, 2016
Nice addition to my knowledge of the Sword Coast. Makes me want to delve into the books out there that expand the stories. Now to find a larger group of gamers that I could play with.
February 15, 2016
Good almanac of the world of Faerûn.
August 20, 2016
Good info in an entertaining read. Would have been much more useful if written as a game guide rather than a series of interviews. More maps would be much better.
January 12, 2017
Pretty good, although for me the flavor to crunch ratio was a little high
May 7, 2017
I loved the book! It's probably the history geek in me and my love of details to really flush out a world but this information book was perfect. I hope they release more of it's kind.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews