RPG Review: Nobis: The City States

In Nobis, you adventure in the lands of the City-States, enormous cities that tower into the sky.
At first glance, this would appear to be a very basic 3.5 3rd-party supplement that would fade into the cracks. But Nobis is not just any old supplement.
The book begins by covering your basic history of the world, talking about the city-states, and where they come from, a world map, and detailed information on the gods, secret societies and more.
But where the book really shines is in the new rules introduced.
Simplecraft is a new form of magic that allows anyone to use the arcane arts. Simplecraft allows you to give simple boosts to your weapons, create a minor arcane effect, or create a protective spell. There’s a whole section of small simplecraft powers such as “Dazzle”, which gives a +4 to Charisma-based skill checks for one hour, or “Lighten Load”, which gives you the ability to reduce the weight of a single item by 75% 4 hours.
Additionally, there’s a new “Fencing Discipline”, a new set of feats that give any class the ability to become a fencer. Some of the abilities are pretty cool.
Firearms are also discussed, something frequently argued about throughout all the years of RPGs. The rules here make firearms very expensive, but they are also very powerful weapons. Firearms also follow the “exploding dice” rule, allowing you to do massive damage by re-rolling every time you roll max damage.
Reputation is something I’ve always liked in games, but is very rarely used. Here, the Reputation system is used to give you more recognition for the deeds you perform.
In all there’s a lot of information here for you to use in your 3e game even if you’re not using the Nobis setting. If any of those additional rules appeal to you, definitely go check this book out.