Kingdoms of Kalamar: What is it and does it suck?

[HunterOfJello]

I've noticed some books from the campaign setting, Kingdoms of Kalamar, at my local used book stores a few times lately and I was wondering if anyone had any info on this setting that I've never heard of.

Most of the time, when I see a d&d book from 3e or 3.5 at a store that I've never seen mentioned on these forums, I assume that the book sucks. This was the case with Ghostwalk, Weapons of Legacy, and the Dungeon Survival Guide.

So, have I misjudged this book or is Kingdoms of Kalamar worth a look?

[kharmakazy]

I believe it is third party but with a seal of approval kind of deal. I remember many of the creatures had an insane lack of sense and crazy abilities.

[HunterOfJello]

Ah, it did have a 3rd party feel to it, although it also had the d&d logo on it.

[tyckspoon]

It's basically a setting book, similar to the Dragonlance book. The 'official WotC D&D' logo on it is the result of some legal kerfluffle- short form, Wizards violated a contract with Kenzerco, and part of the settlement was allowing them to use the official seal on the Kingdoms of Kalamar book instead of the standard 'd20 System compatible' marking. It's still essentially a 3rd party product- it was developed and written by an outside group, not WotC's house staff.

[Laura Eternata]

(Hey, I LIKE Ghostwalk...)

I vaguely remember that book. If I'm thinking of the same thing, I'm pretty sure it was extremely generic high fantasy with subpar artwork - nothing offensively bad about it, but nothing even slightly memorable either.

[Spuddles]

It's 3rd edition and the creators have a poor sense of mechanical balance.

Many races have +2 to two mental stats and -2 to one physical stat- the golden halfling is an awesome caster race, for instance, with -2 str, and +2 int and like +2 wis, and small size. Hobgoblins have like +2 con and -2 to all mental stats, which makes them super lame. Similar with other races that have physical stats.

There's a metamagic feat that removes the saving throw from a spell. Since it's 3rd ed and not 3.5, there's an improved cover feat that let's you get >9/10 cover from a tower shield. IE, you're untargetable.

They introduce a shaman or some **** that's like a druid with wildshape at level 3 or 4, full casting, and domains.

They also have some pretty broken spells. The one that comes to mind is Summon Fey, where you can summon a fey with as many HD as the level of the spell. Pixies get such good spells, especially for level 1....

The big selling point of the setting is that it is supposed to be gritty and geographically accurate. Which really means that it's the perfect setting to go Tippyverse if you don't heavily limit spells like teleport circle, fabricate, etc. Because they overvalue melee so much, it actually makes the setting more at risk to the problem of OP casters. They have a pretty neat idea in making kings and high ranking monarchs protected from that stuff, where they basically get spell effects put on them by Gods or something to protect them, but it's nothing spectacular.

I am not a fan of the setting, as you can probably tell, if only because the mechanics they present do nothing to support their fluff.

[Thalnawr]

If you ignore most (or maybe even all) of the mechanics in the book, it's got some pretty decent fluff for a campaign setting. Of course, buying books for fluff may not be most people's thing...

[Aemoh87]

I have played KoK and it is interesting... I recommend the campaign setting to anyone as long as you ban a few spells and feats. Most players will never have heard of it before so when you show up to play it, it will be novel to them. Also it will give them alot of new material to discover. I also recommend the Villian Design Handbook from that setting. Some of my all time favorite magic items come from that book.

[ThiagoMartell]

Ghostwalk and Weapons of Legacy are awesome books. They just lack optimization options.

[sonofzeal]

Ghostwalk and Weapons of Legacy are awesome books. They just lack optimization options.
Legacy Champion comes up in a number of TO builds. And doesn't Ghostwalk have the ridiculously-broken Lucid Dreaming skill?

The problem is generally less the lack of optimization, it's overall terrible design. Weapons of Legacy are generally a horrible burden for any character foolish enough to be seduced by the alleged awesome. Is it too much to ask that the priceless unique artifact not actively make my character worse? Seriously?

As for Ghostwalk, Gloves of the Master Strategist do more than Gloves of Storing but are dramatically cheaper. And I'll add Dancing Blade as a huge "WTF" moment. Here, check it out:

Dancing Blade [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Proficient in rapier, Perform (dance) 1 rank, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: When fighting with a rapier with the full attack action, you gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls with that weapon.

...can you say "categorically worse than Weapon Focus in every possible way"? :smallbiggrin:

[ThiagoMartell]

The problem is generally less the lack of optimization, it's overall terrible design.
Any D&D book has some bad material. Doesn't mean the books are bad. Weapons of Legacy are fine if you ignore personal costs and Ghostwalk is an interesting setting.
ToB has ridiculous editting mistakes, Iron Heart Surge, weird stance progression... and it's still one of the best books in 3.5
Anyway, I like the books. You're free to not like them.

[Togo]

Any D&D book has some bad material. Doesn't mean the books are bad. Weapons of Legacy are fine if you ignore personal costs and Ghostwalk is an interesting setting.
ToB has ridiculous editting mistakes, Iron Heart Surge, weird stance progression... and it's still one of the best books in 3.5
Anyway, I like the books. You're free to not like them.

Hm.. I've been looking for a way to make legacy items more workable. My two biggest problems are the steep cost for legacy items, and the difficulty in integrating such items into the standard magic item costs and arrays.

You reckon getting rid of the personal costs solves that? Are you keeping the feat costs and just getting rid of hp skill point and similar costs, or are you eliminating all costs and treating them as plot-device items?

[Flickerdart]

Weapons of Legacy are fine if you ignore personal costs
The personal costs are half of using the items. That's like saying "carpet of flying is good if you ignore the gold cost". ToB has a couple of errors that should have gotten errata. WoL is just terribly implemented in its entirety.

[ThiagoMartell]

Hm.. I've been looking for a way to make legacy items more workable. My two biggest problems are the steep cost for legacy items, and the difficulty in integrating such items into the standard magic item costs and arrays.

You reckon getting rid of the personal costs solves that? Are you keeping the feat costs and just getting rid of hp skill point and similar costs, or are you eliminating all costs and treating them as plot-device items?

There is no feat cost by RAW. You get the feats as bonus feats when you complete the rituals.
I don't think the cost in GP is steep at all. Ever since I first got the book I've been using them with a few alterations and it works just fine.

[Tokuhara]

The major issue with Legacy Weapons is the damage they cause you. For instance: Hillcrusher from Forge of War costs you -3 to Attack, -4 to Fortiude Saves, and -10 HP from 5-20 with 54500 gold spent on rituals. This is a painful cost for a weapon that at the end of the day is a +4 Impact Giant Bane Heavy Flail. Impact is nice, but Giant Bane is useless unless you are consistanly facing giants in your campaign. Some other Legacy Weapons are even worse for a higher cost... No thanks.

Back to Kingdoms. Personally, I thought it was well-written, if a bit on the high end of the power scale. I always liked the Half-Hobgoblin race. Kind of a good fluff and not-crap crunch, so I thought it was good.

[eggs]

Legacy Champion comes up in a number of TO builds. And doesn't Ghostwalk have the ridiculously-broken Lucid Dreaming skill?

As for Ghostwalk, Gloves of the Master Strategist do more than Gloves of Storing but are dramatically cheaper.
Lucid Dreaming is Manual of the Planes.
Gloves of the Master Strategist are more expensive than the Gloves of Storing that had already existed.

Ghostwalk's problems have more to do with its really weird concept and its place as one of the last 3.0 supplements than they do with the quality of the materials (which are pretty solidly mediocre).

[Tyndmyr]

I've noticed some books from the campaign setting, Kingdoms of Kalamar, at my local used book stores a few times lately and I was wondering if anyone had any info on this setting that I've never heard of.

Most of the time, when I see a d&d book from 3e or 3.5 at a store that I've never seen mentioned on these forums, I assume that the book sucks. This was the case with Ghostwalk, Weapons of Legacy, and the Dungeon Survival Guide.

So, have I misjudged this book or is Kingdoms of Kalamar worth a look?

Your guess is 100% accurate. I own it(well, several books from it, including the main one), and it does indeed suck. It is the only setting Ive seen in which one of the adventure models involves the PCs serving as assistants to farmers. Not in the "we're fixing this pest problem for you" way, but in the "and now we're planting crops" way.

Yknow how lots of people say they like low-powered, low magic settings? This is what happens when the dial is spun too far in that direction. Everything ends up mundane and boring and balance is basically not a thing.

[Palanan]

I'd never once heard of Kalamar until I saw it mentioned on the Playground earlier this year. The reviews on Amazon gave me a very good sense of what the sourcebooks are like.

Based on what I read there, my opinion is much the same as Tyndmyr's. The setting has the occasional interesting feature, but overall it looks bland, stilted and generally unexciting. The only exception for me is the monster sourcebook, Dangerous Denizens, and that only because it gives stats on a wonderful array of cats, large and small. Apart from that (and the dubious charms of the golden halfling) it seems to be thoroughly marinated in meh.

[Spuddles]

The major issue with Legacy Weapons is the damage they cause you. For instance: Hillcrusher from Forge of War costs you -3 to Attack, -4 to Fortiude Saves, and -10 HP from 5-20 with 54500 gold spent on rituals. This is a painful cost for a weapon that at the end of the day is a +4 Impact Giant Bane Heavy Flail. Impact is nice, but Giant Bane is useless unless you are consistanly facing giants in your campaign. Some other Legacy Weapons are even worse for a higher cost... No thanks.

Back to Kingdoms. Personally, I thought it was well-written, if a bit on the high end of the power scale. I always liked the Half-Hobgoblin race. Kind of a good fluff and not-crap crunch, so I thought it was good.

While I agree with your analysis of legacy weapons, I ask that you review KoK with more scrutiny. The power level is very low, fluff wise (and, with a few exceptions, crunchwise as well), and half hobgoblin is strictly worse than half orc. Half orc has niche use; half hobgoblin does not. FR is a high power setting. KoK is on the opposite end of it. Tyndmyr does a great job summarizing my feelings on the material.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Kingdoms of Kalamer was first published during 3.0, there are many 3.0 books and many had updated 3.5 versions. The Core 3.5 books were released July 2003, but Kenzer's books only have the copyright year to indicate their release date. Even then, most of the 3.0 stuff was still usable in 3.5, and some of it was completely broken (Irresistible Spell). Many of their base classes are extremely front-loaded (Infiltrator), though not as bad as other 3.0 base classes (Ranger, Paladin). A few official 1st party items came directly from Kalamar books, such as the Celerity and Summoner domains.

I played in a Kalamar campaign during 3.0 when I was in college. The people I played with were amazing, so I had a great experience with it. I'd say it's just as good as any official published setting, possibly even better considering its writers weren't trying to use it to court novelists as well. I haven't really looked into many of its books, but there were quite a few published adventures of varying quality and a few books that look like they may have been strictly fluff-only. Like any set of used game books, it really depends on how cheap they are, how much you're willing to spend, and how interested you are in them.

One note on the D&D logo on those books. The Kalamar books are officially usable with D&D games, which puts it one step above 1st-party d20 products like Dragonlance and d20 Modern for use in D&D games. If a D&D game is allowing Dragonlance templates, feats, etc., then it should allow d20 Modern feats like Persistent Power (http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/ArcanaOccupationsandFeats.rtf). A D&D game should allow Kalamar feats and classes before it allows anything from a 1st party d20 source that doesn't bear the D&D logo.

[eggs]

If a D&D game is allowing Dragonlance templates, feats, etc., then it should allow d20 Modern feats like Persistent Power (http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/ArcanaOccupationsandFeats.rtf).
Going a bit off-topic, isn't Persistent Power already technically valid in 3.5? It was never specifically overwritten or barred with the 3.5 psionics update, and its mechanics are compatible (if breakable) with the revised system.

[Tokuhara]

While I agree with your analysis of legacy weapons, I ask that you review KoK with more scrutiny. The power level is very low, fluff wise (and, with a few exceptions, crunchwise as well), and half hobgoblin is strictly worse than half orc. Half orc has niche use; half hobgoblin does not. FR is a high power setting. KoK is on the opposite end of it. Tyndmyr does a great job summarizing my feelings on the material.

Half-Hobgoblin gets +1 to Fortitude Saves. How is that not powerful? A racial bonus to a save is nice, but I would much rather it be a +2 con, but I cannot complian. Yes, the "better" option is +2 Dex -2 Int. It hurts, but it could be a decent character for something that isn't Int-dependant. A Shadow Hand Half-Hobgoblin Swordsage could be a devistating combatant (+2 dexterity equals +1 to hit and to damage with the right feats, as well as +1 to initiative and +1 AC), as could a Ranged Touch Attack caster (non-wizard/archivist preferble).

Overall, if players want a more roleplay-focused campaign (Game of Thrones-esq), Kalimar can accomplish this well. Let's look at Kalimar as a story-driven social game, not a war game. Eberron, FR, and to a lesser extent Dark Sun is a War Game vs. Dragonlance and Kalimar, which are social games. That's not saying that you cannot make an Eberron Game that is a game of intrigue, politics, and such, but the crunch of Eberron is combat-focused

[Madcrafter]

My DM has some KoK books, but the only thing they were ever used for was two metamagic feats: the one (already mentioned) that removes the saving throw from the spell, and the one that allows you to not expend slots when casting (with a skill check? forgot exactly)(which IIRC got errata'd somewhere, but still, who would know the errata for KoK?)