So to keep this thread from dying I decided to review a book that isn't a Complete book. I've actually decided to throw the whole "Complete" thing out the window. Now I'm just going to review whatever I think is cool. Don't worry, I'll still do completes, but with the lack of them for the rest of 2007, I need something else to review. So Book of Vile Darkness is on the menu today. Enjoy!

Chapter 1 of this book starts of with a discussion of what evil actually is. This is good for many who aren't exactly sure about certain things. There's also examples of different ways that evil can exist in your campaign. Is everything black and white? Are there gray areas? Is evil just a matter of perspective? All important questions when running a campaign that has lots of evil in it. Next comes a list of different acts of evil. I found this useful when I wanted to pick a certain evil thing that a villain (or character) does. There's also a list of fetishes (not foryoung readers). This was also useful for creating those really disturbing villains. A masocistic person that likes to... wait, I don't think that forum rules permit me to complete the description of the villain. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Next comes a list of evil gods. Useful for those cults that seem to be everywhere in the D&D world. Next comes a part that I loved. 2 evil races. Basically evil versions of the humans and halfings. While not particularly imaginative, I like the actual racial traits. Next come various evil archetypes. While this isn't something particularly new or imaginative, it is useful to help you start making that BBEG (big bad evil guy). Whether your a DM making a villain, or a player making an evil character, this is a beautiful chapter.

Chapter 2 is all about variant rules. I'd love to go into depth on these rules, but they can be a bit complicated. First comes possession. I like the fact that a set of standard rules finally came out for this sort of thing, but the amount of rules can be a bit overwhelming. Next comes sacrifice. I already tested this out in my Dealers of Vengeance campaign that I'm running on these forums. While the effects where a bit too short term for that campaign, I can imagine this being done right before a battle to  help you. Basically you make a Knowledge (religion) check, and depending on your result you get different bonuses. And next come curses. Ahhh yes, that thing that I always made up. Nice to see fairly simple rules for this. Diseases are here, but not as varient rules. Instead there's a list of exrtremely nast diseases that no sane player will ever want.

Chapter 3 is especially evil. It describes evil equipment. Of course the first thing there are torture devices. Things like jaw breakers (no, I'm not talking about the cand) andthumb screws are listed there. Not to mention rules on the iron maiden (great band btw). They also give execution equipment and rules on executing. Things like a crucifixion cross are listed there. Now here comes something interestin. Drugs. WotC has made drugs into actual items and a set of rules. I never thought this would happen. I can't imagine how to use this in a game yet, but I'm pretty sure I'll think of something. And of course, what book on evil wouldn't be complete without a HUGE list of poisons. Seriously, this part of the chapter is paradise for anyone who likes assassins. A variety of evil spell components that enhance spels to make them more evil are also listed.

Chapter 4 has feats. Vile feats are the new thing in this book. These make your character truly evil and disgusting. An example vile feat is Lichloved. Basically if you do "stuff" with undead enough they start to  see you as one of their own. Creepy. Willing deformity feats also exist. Basically you deform yourself (obviously) to give yourself lots of bonuses. There aren't many feats though, which is a kind of dissapointment.

Chapter 5 has prestige classes. The first one tis the cancer mage. I think that's pretty self explanatory. For all of you demon lovers, here comes the Demonologist Prc. It lets you summon and use demons to your advantage with more skill. I used this Prc for a villain. Hilarity began with the summoning of a balor. And of course there's the Diabolist. It's like the Demonologist, but with devils. Next comes the Disciple of Asmodeus. As the name says, this is a person that devotes themselves to the devil Asmodeus. There's a bunch of Prcs similar to the disciple of asmodeus. For pretty much every major demon and devil there's a prc. Now here comes an interesting Prc. The lifedrinker. It's a Prc for vampires. Probably more useful for NPCs (few people actually get to play vampire). It's a nice prestige class for that vampire villain. And here comes another Prc for villains. It's the Mortal Hunter. Basically this is an evil outsider that likes to kill mortals. Pretty simple, yet deadly. Now comes the soul eater. This pretty much explains itself with its own name. What makes me unhappy is that its another prestige class useful for NPCs (usually). If your a humanoid you can't use it. That pretty rules out almost all characters. The vermin lord is a spellcaster that slowly replaces his/her body parts with vermin. Your hands can become spiders.

Chapter 6 deals with magic. I'll be brief with this one. I've never been particularly good at reviewing spells. There are some new (obviously evil) domains that add a little bit of evil sugar to clerics. Most of the spells I looked at were pretty good. Few of them were dissapointing. Some of the artwork for these spells was just weird. Look in the book and you'll understand. But there is something else in this chapter besides spells. Theres evil magic items. I used this for an evil character I had once, and it was fun. The other people in my party were morally obligated not to use such evil things, but my character had fun. Seriously, you can have a weapon that sucks the blood out of your enemies. How cool is that? The artifacts are especially good. I plan to some day start a quest for something called the Regalia of Evil. It's three artifacts that when worn all together make already awesome powers into unbelievable powers.

Chapter 7 describes the "Lords of Evil." Basically it talks about all the powerful demons and devils. Don't run a campaign in the abyss or hell without having the stats of these guys. Some of them suck though. Bel, the lord of the first layer of hell has the same CR as a pit fiend. How did he come to control a layer of hell if any one of the pit fiends he controls could kill him? It doesn't make sense. This is a great chapter that also gave me lots of ideas for creating villains.

Chapter 8 is the final chapter. It has a bunch of evil monsters. Theres some new demons and devils, of course. Theres the vilewight, which I love. Great monster. There's also the "Eye of Fear and Flame." It's an awesome monster that will surprise anyone who doesn't know about it. At first they think it's just a skeleton, but once fireballs and fear spells start coming out of it's eyes the players realize just how screwed they are.

There's a very nice appendix at the end of this book. It talks about evil PCs. I read this section before starting the Dealers of Vengeance campaign on these forums. It was extremely helpful. Whether you want to play an antihiro, a villain, or some other type of evil character, this chapter also helps. It discusses evil characters in good parties. I do wish that it gave moreon actually running a campaign with evil characters, but it had only a page devoted to it.

A great book if you are a DM. It's less usefull for players. A lot of the stuff is focused for making NPC villains. Most of the prestige classes aren't very good for players. I also suspect that at the time they were writing this book, WotC got a bunch of requests for D&D porn. It ended up going into this book. It doesn't really make this book any worse, it just makes it even more innapropraite for kids than it already is. I give it an 8.5/10.

I'm also considering in having a guest review. Basically one of you review for me. Post if your interested.

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As everyone knows 4e D&D is coming out next summer. And have no fear, I promise that I will review all 3 of their core books. Right now I haven't bought any new books at all so no reviews for now. Sorry.

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Alright I found a book in depths of  hell my room. It's dungeonscape co-written by the author of Order of the Stick (great webcomic). I can say from the beggining that this book has things useful for both players and DMs. Most of the things for DMs are new types of dungeon hazards such as a zombie door (more on that later). Players get advice on what to take into a dungeon.

Chapter 1 is both for players and DMs. It's supposed to discuss the "dungeon as an enemy" but halfway through the chapter it just lists new obstacles that a DM can use. The beginning gives some quick advice on what to bring and then lists common hazards and how to prepare for them. It gives some advice just how to work together as a party. Next it lists what each standard class does bes in a dungeon. Each class gets a new alternative class feature that will help in a dungeon. Some of them are fairly nice. The cleric gets one where he/she can traid in prepared spells for the restoration spells. Some allow characters to find traps, and the wizard obviously seems to be written Rich Burlew. They also give a new standard class, the Factotum. It's THE ultimate generalist. Never mind bards, this thing really can do almost anything another class can. The only problem is that they can't do it as well. Basically this is a class that is mediocre at EVERYTHING. They might be useful if a party member goes missing, but until I honestly see one do well in a campaign I won't like it. Next comes the part for DMs. It gives loads of new terrain that you can throw at your PCs.  For example, you can put up a wall of souls. It is in fact a wall made out of souls. Cool, no? There's of course the zombie door that I mentioned earlier. It is a door made out of still living (unliving?) zombies.

Chapter 2 deals with what gear you might want to bring into a dungeon. This is especially useful for those slightly new players. They give some new equipment that could be very useful. Alchemical items such as acid neutralizer could save your life in a dungeon. It also gives a great bit of advice; "An object that will be needed infrequently but whose absence could kill you should take priority over an item that might be used more often but is not crutial to your survival." Great advice. It also gives a list of magic items that the authors think will be useful. This list is pretty good. There's some good new armor and weapon special abilities. Armor that you can sleep in is one of them. Then come some fairly nice wondrous items such as the Grasping Hook which is a grappling hook that tries to grab onto something. Here comes a useful part. Several different kits are listed with their costs and contents. Things like the Safe Rest Kit, and the DoorBuster Kit. Each kit is just a collection of equipment put together. While I see a couple ways of improving these kits they're fairly good.

Chapter 3 has the obligatory character options chapter. It starts out with some feats. There's very little of them, and most of them aren't very good. Next come teamwork benefits. For those of you who don't know what those are it's something that the entire party can learn. The prerequisites are usually some skill ranks and once you have a teamwork benefit you get bonuses for doing certain things with your party. For example the "Climbing Squad" teamwork benefit give the party a bonus to climb checks when they climb together. There's only 2 teamwork benefits but both of them are going to be useful in a dungeon, and sometimes outside of one. Now come the PrCs. Honestly I sometimes think that WotC focuses too much on PrCs. Thankfully there's only 2. The first is the Beast Heart Adept. I actually like this one. A beast heart adept is someone who spends time with monsters and keeps them as companions. The PrC actually gets 3 monstrous companions by level 10. I like this PrC. It could be an enemy in a dungeon or a PC could use this effectively in combat. The other PrC is the Trapsmith. The name pretty much explains the whole PrC. I only see this as useful if the PCs tend to get a lot of time to prepare in a campaign. And it won't be a very useful NPC. I don't like this one. Now they list a bunch of Dungeoneering Guilds that are mediocre. A DM will probably be able to think of some on their own.

Chapter 4 is one of my favorites. It gives advice oncreating better and more unique dungeons. It begins with describing the different functions a dungeon can serve besides "series of rooms with monsters in them." It also gives ideas for the origins of a dungeon besides "the DM says it's there." It also gives advice on making monsters memorable. This is all very useful and gave me a bunch of ideas for a future dungeon crawl. Next comes a table for randomly rolling a dungeon theme. Personally I think that dungeons should be created by a DM, not some die rolls. Still, they give good advice on how to connect themes one the table. They do it fairly well and create some good dungeon themes such as the "dungeon of chains." The rest is advice on creating differently flavored rooms. There's really too much there for me to summarize. I can tell you that its good .

Chapter 5 is about setting up encounters in a dungeon. It gives advice on what kind of tactics the owner of a dungeon would use to protect their property. Most of them are pretty usefull and will make the final encounter more difficult. Next comes an encounter template. It's a guide to easily setting up a good encounter. I found it to be very useful for creating encounters that had a focus to them, such as mind controlling enemies. There's also a great half a page that's entitled "Ten Reasons Encounter Get Trashed." It give 10 things to avoid as a DM if you want good encounters. Now comes an interesting part. If you want to make memorable monsters then you obviously make them different from the standard kind. And here it gives good feats to replace the default feats of monsters such as the Chimera and the Umber Hulk. While it doesn't list many monsters, it gave me ideas for different monsters. And of course, what dungeon book would be complete without a list o new monsters? Theres a new prestige class in the monster list too (don't know why). It's the Dungeon Lord. This is for those evil dungeon owners. It's a good PrC for that final villain who's in the last room for one last battle. Anyway, back to the monsters. There's mostly templates here. The acidborn template is very interesting. Basically anything with the acid template can live in acid, and gets some other templates. I love the idea of hiding monsters inside a pool of acids. That's really going to be the last place PCs are going to look. The other templates are just there too make the monster tougher.

Chapter 6 is about one of the oldest parts of a dungeon, traps. It begins with a list of several types of traps that serve different purposes. Some traps can exist to eject someone out of a dungeon, and some exist just to test enemies. Next a bunch of traps are listed with CRs ranging from 1-22. I especially like the lava curtains trap. This is great for giving your PCs something other than the standard pit trap. Now of course a good guide to creating traps comes after the list. It's great for making cool, unique, and fun traps. I had so much fun using a trap that randomly shot fireballs all over the place. The next part gives advice on incorporating monsters into traps to give a new twist. Next comes another list of more standard and somewhat less creative traps. It's not as good as the first one in hte chapter, but it's still pretty good. Now here's a part that I just loved. Complex traps. It lists a catapult trap that basically throws someone out of the dungeon. Theres also the Feeding Chute Trap that is basically a trap door that opens up into a chute that leads into a monster's lair. And if you ever thought that traps can only hurt, think again. Boon Traps are listed. These are traps that provide benefits. The basic thought behind this is that if there's a guardian beast that is in the area affect of this trap, and when the adventurers trigger it the guardian beast gets an edge on the soon attacking adventurers.

Chapter 7 is basically everything else that can be placed in a dungeon. You know how I mentioned that lots of nice terrain was listed in the first chapter. Well this chapter gives that terrain stats. Whether it's the zombie door, the wall of ice, or the floor of fire these all get stats. You know how in some cheap horror movies someone is walking up some stairs, and suddenly the steps shift so that the stairs are a slippery ramp? Well that was given rules too. This chapter is full of that kind of stuff. Some of it is mediocre. The final part is about "decorating" a dungeon. It tells you how to add little touches to dungeons to make it more vivid.

I consider this a great book. If you love running dungeons then go out and buy this. Of course with 4e coming out I'm not sure you'll want to. My final rating is

9.2/10

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Now for a double review. They'll be shorter than the last few, which have been HUGE. Anyway, its Fiendish Codex I, and Fiendish Codex II.

Fiendish Codex I
    Demons have been around since the beginning of D&D, and are very popular monsters. So naturally I was expecting a lot from this book, and it gave me what I wanted (mostly). The book begins with a bunch of fluff about demons. A great example is the suggestion that the Abyss is a living entity itself that creates demons to advance its causes. It's all interesting stuff, although mechanics-wise some of it's useless (the fact that a dretch doesn't crap isn't something very important). It then gives some good advice about running demons in combat. There's also some rules regarding possesion.
    Next comes a bunch of new monsters, all of them demons. Most of them are pretty good, and some are just plain bizzare. The EKolid is some weird mixture of fly, spider, scorpion, octopus, dead person, and insanity. There's a good range challenge ratings, which is all too often something that many books don't have.
    Now comes my favorite part, the demon lords! The classic demon lords like Demagorgon and Orcus are in there, but some new faces like Dagon or Pazuzu are also there. People have complained that a lot of the demon lords have been powered down, but personally I'm glad they did this. There's a guide that tells you how to raise the CR on the demon lords. Powering up is a lot less work than powering down, so you can raise the CR is you want the demon lords to fight epic characters.
    Here's the part for the players who bought the book. There's tons of great new feats. The abyssal heritor feats let your character take on demonic traits because of demonic ancestry. There's the vile feats that were first introduced in Book of Vile darkness, and then there's a few normal feats, which is my biggest dissapointment. They could have added a few more of those. There's also a good number of new demon themed spells, most of them good. They also give a bunch of information on the Black Cult of Ahm, an organization devoted to collecting knowledge about demons. This part is kind of boring except for a few artifacts.
    And now for the final part, a description of 15 of the many layers of the abyss, all of them important. This is a great chapter for players and DMs alike. The DMs have it a lot easier to run anything that happens in the abyss, and players get a guide to the insanity of those worlds. The layers ruled by important demon lords are there, like Thanatos, the realm of Orcus. Some of the descriptions can be sort of confusing, which is annoying.

In the end a good book, but it has some minor faliures.

9.5/10

Fiendish Codex II
    Since the first fiendish codex was about demons this one is obviously about devils, my favorite kind of fiend. It's (almost) just as great as Fiendish Codex I. In the beginning it gives a story explaining the creation of devils, hell, and why the devils want souls. Devils actually create new devils out of souls they torture, but before they do that they use the souls to give themselves magical energy. Souls are like money in hell because of how useful they are.
    The book goes on in a way that's similar to how the previous book did. It describes devils. Here the main focus is on how devil society works, how to run devils, fighting devils, and the trafficking of souls. All of it is useful, and anyone who wants to sell their characters soul will especially like this chapter. In exchange for being Lawful Evil and your soul you can get feats, money, and all sorts of goodies.
    Now comes a description of all 9 layers of hell. Each layer gets an in depth description including it's major sights. Some of the layers come with effects that can really complicate things. On the first layer, fireballs randomly appear and burn anyone regardless of who they are. They also give the side effect of making combat pretty complicated.
    This is the part for players. A new race called the Hellbred is introduced. Basically they're people who truly regretted the evil they did in life, but never got a chance at redemption. The good gods take them out of hell and make them into this new race. To actually get redemption they need to do something good of epic proportions. The racial traits are good, but IMO they should have LA, which they don't. The feats are also nice, but some of the best or most interesting ones are for devils only, which is a big dissapointment. There's 4 prestige classes but only 2 are of any wide ranged use. There's also new devil themed spells. They seem sort of mediocre.
    What devil book wouldn't have a bunch of new devils for DMs to kill players have fun with? The ones provided here are as great as the demons in FCI. I especially like the Abishai, who are devils serving Tiamat. Of course, there's a wide range of challenge ratings which is just what I like.
    Finally, the nine lords of hell. Like the demon lords, these guys have been powered down, but fortunately they come with a guide on making them more powerful so all is well. If anyone remembers the Hag Countess, who ruled the six layer, then know that she's gone. The daughter of Asmodeus called Glasya has replaced her. What happened to the Hag Countess is interesting so I won't spoil it for you.

A good book. In some ways better and in some ways worse than FCI

9/10

Also....

800th POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Seeing as how I'm back it seems only fitting that I review another book. And the book of the day is Races of Stone. The basic premise of the book a description of three "races of stone." The races are dwarves, gnomes, and goliaths (a new one exclusive to this book). Anyway, time to begin.

The first three chapters are devoted entirely to the races. Each chapter gives a full description of one of the three races, with things like culture, economy, religion, legends, and so on. With dwarves and gnomes they don't say much that people already know. Still, it provides a few juicy bits. I'm not really sure how gnomes qualify as a "race of stone," but I guess that besides dwarves there isn't anything else in the players handbook that could qualify. Now the goliaths are where the whole gold of this book is. I can't wait to play one of these.
    The goliaths are a race of very big mountain nomads. They fit the whole gentle giant role perfectly. They are officially medium sized, but they can use weapons designed for large creatures, and they get some benefits that large creatures would get. Their culture absolutely enthralled me. I could ramble on about it till my keyboard breaks from the strain of all my typing, but I want to keep this review somewhat short.
    Anyway, the next part of the book details some other races, but in far less details. Most of these races are subraces of three in the earlier chapters. The two gnome subraces look pretty interesting, but the dwarf subrace just seems absolutely ridiculous. Judging by the picture in the book, they're apparently a bunch of hippies. Now two words that shouldn't go together in Dnd are "hippy" and "dwarf".  There's also the stonechild race which came from a union between an earth elemental and a human. Never mind how weird such a union would be. The race has a LA of +4, which means that sadly it will almost never be used by a player.
    Anyway, the prestige classes are next, and they're the weakest part of the book. They're all rather boring, and not very powerful. I won't waste time describing them.
    Now come a ton of character options. First there's a bunch of new uses for skills. They don't seem particularly innovative, but they do save time for a DM or player. I enjoyed the feats. They fit very well with the whole "stone theme". One that I especially liked was the Fling Ally feat. You literally pick up an ally, and throw them. Presumably at the enemy. Now I honestly just want to play a goliath, have a friend play a halfling or gnome, and then just throw them into a crowd of enemies. There's also racial substitution levels. Basically if you're of a certain race you can swap class skills for ones unique to your race. This only works for certain classes for each race, but the whole thing is an interesting way to put a twist on old classes.
    Next there's some equipment and new spells. The equipment has some interesting stuff, but not much. Same with the spells.
Finally, the book gives some ideas on making a "stone centered" campaign. This part is mostly for DMs, and is rather interesting.

A fairly good book, especially awesome with the goliaths. Unfortunately not much more really sticks out in the book.

7.7/10

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