Oriental Adventures D20

First off, I'm likely not the target market, considering that I'm from the “Orient” that's the title is encompassing.

My primary peeve with the book is that it's an odd mix of a Player's Handbook, a Dungeon Master's Guide, and a campaign setting. I think it should have been two separate books.

The sourcebook part is only adequate. Most the early chapters deal with what's out (of the core rulebooks) and what's in (the “replacements” here). For the mostly part, there aren't any direct replacements, but you cant helped but draw similarities, like hengeyokai vs elves, korobokuru vs dwarves, spirit folk vs half-elves, etc. You can obviously draw similarities between the classes, but for the most part, they can stand alone. The spells and equipments are where it shines I think, with obvious real-world inspirations. The prestige classes are poor - most are simply someone trying way too hard to make a typical/normal role in an Asian society and trying to make something “prestigious” out of it. The monk ones are suitable for use outside of an Oriental campaign though.

The section on monsters is way too focused on Rokugan - which is the setting that replaced Kara-Tur as the default. The poor presentations is where throughout the entirety of the earlier chapters, there are hundreds of sections and paragraphs devoted to stating what's in Rokugan and what's not. Yet the sourcebook ends with two chapters entirely abouts Rokugan. It's an odd choice of presentation - why not just put all Rokugan-specific material together? But that aside, this part of the book is pretty decent, as it lays out the history of Rokugan and presents you with a current state of affairs.