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View Full Version : Vile Darkness or Exalted Deeds?



Alleine
2007-07-03, 12:50 AM
I have enough money for one of these books, and none of the other books at the store interest me. My DnD group is usually good-neutral people, no one ever picks an evil character to my knowledge. We're 6 levels into our current (epic) campaign. I have no idea which book I want to buy, however, I'd like whichever book first and foremost helps me, after I'm happy it can help the other people, or not.

Which book should I buy?

Oh, and I'm a CN(sadly) psion.

Kizara
2007-07-03, 01:21 AM
Although BoED might be more applicable, I found the BoVD more interesting and better written. Alot lighter to read too.

Both give EXCELLENT flavour options and descriptions of how to roleplay the good/evil alignment. Both have cool stuff in them.

Sadly, I found both were fairly bad when it came to crunch. The BoVD has some really good expanded rules for torture, sacrificing and such though. I found the BoVD had much better crunch in general.

Most of the Exalted feats were ethier terrible or horribly overpowered. Still, in my opinion I'd recommend you get BoVD, as I've found it more useful. Both are wroth picking up though, so see if you can't get your group to help you a bit in springing for books.

Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-07-03, 01:23 AM
These are my two favorite books, as the battle between good and evil is one of the things I love about D&D.

If you DM a lot, BoVD helps more, if you play more often, BoED helps more.

Lucky
2007-07-03, 01:24 AM
Really depends whether you want it for your players or for you. Do you want players to have more options for their characters, or do you want more options for you villains? Also, while both state they deal with mature themes, BoVD is more along the type of stuff that can give you nightmares. A lot of it is much darker than the normal D&D villains, and could be a path you don't want to take, instead sticking with the known. Another thing, but much less significant, is that BoVD is 3.0, and BoED is 3.5.

Alleine
2007-07-03, 01:35 AM
As I said, I'm looking for things to benefit me first and foremost. This means either tangibly or otherwise. I'd love to give my character some flavor. I find that my group doesn't RP as much as I imagined DnD should be.

And one more thing, does either book really require an alignment change?

Thanks for the thoughts, definitley leaning towards BoVD now.

Kizara
2007-07-03, 01:42 AM
If your looking for crunch for a CN character and you don't want to change alignment: get the BoVD.

Alot of it you can 'get away with' as a morally questionable neutral character.

Whereas the BoED is generally "you have to be super ultra extra especially good to even look at this stuff". I'm not kidding. Nonetheless, its extremely through about its discussion of what it means to be the good alignment.

Both are heavy, mature reads, and while... heh, the BoVD isn't as dark as some people might like to think, it's certinally not PG-13. Not for the faint of heart or stomach, some of it is pretty nasty if you dwell on it.

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-03, 02:16 AM
And of course, the "mature" label lets them get away with sticking in boobies about once every 20 pages(and 1 boobie, in one of the BoVD pages):smalltongue:

In all seriousness, I found BoVD far less sickening than BoED. Mainly because BoED has such extreme standards, that 99% of all canonised Saints would fall. Seriously.

Dervag
2007-07-03, 02:42 AM
And of course, the "mature" label lets them get away with sticking in boobies about once every 20 pages(and 1 boobie, in one of the BoVD pages):smalltongue:

In all seriousness, I found BoVD far less sickening than BoED. Mainly because BoED has such extreme standards, that 99% of all canonised Saints would fall. Seriously.For those of us who find the improbably good less sickening than the all-too-probably foul, this is merely an inconvenience.

Seriously, you can't use most of the stuff from the BoVD without being one evil SOB, in the colloquial sense, even if some of it is technically possible for neutral characters. So unless your group really wants to roleplay some truly foul people, its use is restricted to villains.

On the other hand, the BoED is almost useless as a source of antagonists unless your group is playing some truly foul people. And it's not very useful as a source of stuff for the heroes unless said heroes stick to high sainthood standards of moral conduct.

LotharBot
2007-07-03, 03:27 AM
I wouldn't get either of these for a CN type character.

BoVD is awesome for running / developing bad guys. Even if you're not into the whole torture / poison / drugs angle, it gives you some VERY big bad guys with different goals and motivations and ways of operating (compare Orcus, Juiblex, Dispater, etc.) It's a great DM book. I would never let my players use it, even in an evil campaign.

I haven't tried BoED, but I don't think it would exactly fit a CN type character.

Sounds like you'd be better off with one of the Complete books or something of that sort.

banjo1985
2007-07-03, 04:03 AM
I agree with Lothar-Bot, for a CN character, neither of the books seems very applicable. However if you DM quite a bit Vile Darkness is the way to go, it's so evil its sometimes worrying, and I've used it on several occasions to add some entertaining quirks and abilities to my evil NPCs.

Exalted deeds I found very dry and dull, but I suppose it's because I usually play neutral or underhanded evil characters. Both books are worth getting if your not as biased as me, but how much it will help your current character is questionable.

Callix
2007-07-03, 04:25 AM
If you ever want to play a paladin without Fax's fix, or an ascetic (no, he's not vinegar-related) monk, BoED is your book. If you're a DM who wants to make the players feel they really removed an irredeemably evil, sickening monstrosity from the world, grab BoVD.

Xuincherguixe
2007-07-03, 04:34 AM
I liked BoVD too. It didn't really strike me as anything 'new' but it came together in a nice little package.

But I don't think I really needed it to come up with horrors whose existence alone breaths atrocity. But maybe it's not really fair, I am pretty disturbed ^_^

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-07-03, 04:36 AM
Book of Vile Shadowy Illumination or Book of Exalted Cheese for a CN Psion?

Unless you have plans for becoming a DM or changing alignment there is not that much to get from either of these books, but most benefit will probably be derived from BoVD.

Dhavaer
2007-07-03, 05:49 AM
IMO, neither is really much good, and as a psion you won't get much use out of them; BoVD has no psionics, and I don't recall that BoED does either. BoVD is better if you ever DM; some of the monsters are quite good.

nerulean
2007-07-03, 06:29 AM
I personally found the BoED fairly sickening: everything in it seems forced and false, overly goody-goody even to someone who frequently plays lawful good. To actually qualify for most of the things in it, you really need to be playing with a party that is entirely made up of true-to-alignment good characters, or have a lax DM who doesn't care.

BoVD, to me, was a much better read and probably has more use. I found the things like possible motivations for an evil character more interesting and less patronising than discussions about whether killing demons who love each other was right. That said, BoVD is clearly meant as a DM's book, and BoED is meant for players.

As a neutral character you're not likely to get a vast amount out of either, though if your party and DM are anything like mine, you're much more likely to encounter horrible evil than pure, shining goodness in a game.

PaladinBoy
2007-07-03, 10:35 AM
I don't think I've ever used the crunch in the BoED, ever. (Well, maybe some of the spells.) That said, I love the first dozen pages or so, that talk about the nature of good, good acts, and common morality dilemmas. Using it all makes you fit the book's definition of exalted, which requires you to be very pure but doesn't seem unreachable, at least in my idealistic opinion. Then again, you can create a good character that uses some, not all, of it.

The BoVD..... heh...... I used it to create an adventure for my players involving an enemy evil group. Some of the stuff in that book is really sickening when you think about it. It also has several pages on the nature of evil, which you can put to the exact same use as the stuff in the BoED, except for evil characters.

Drider
2007-07-03, 11:52 AM
in my opinion, you should either get one of the "complete" books > Heroes of horror > Book of vile darkness > book of exalted deeds.
heroes of horror is alot better and more like what the book of vile darkness was supposed to be.

Runolfr
2007-07-03, 12:07 PM
As a DM, I've found the BoVD useful for developing hard-core evil villains, but never for chaotic neutrals or other relatively mild threats. There's certainly nothing in there that would be of much use to a PC party that isn't seriously taking the dark path.

That said, I don't have the BoED. I've looked through someone else's copy, and I haven't found anything that I would use as a DM or player. To some extent, it's meant to be used by Players in a campaign where the DM is working from the BoVD.

For the player of a CN character, I'd look at the Complete Scoundrel. I picked that one up recently, and I'm finding it to be all kinds of interesting.

SolkaTruesilver
2007-07-03, 12:11 PM
However, if you look at the fluff involved about what is good in the BoED, you'll understand why it's absolutely not all right for a paladin to loose his alignement to save a village.

Except for this, the whole feat + PrC is a total waste (xcept maybe Vassal of bahamut..). Same for the spells, which are pretty good if you fight AGAINST creatures and spell from the BoVD.

The Vile Darkness book is perfect to make disgusting (in the perfect-dramatic point of view) villains, may it be the evil wizard overlord who is scheeming, to the brutish champion of darkness.

The Book of Vile Darkness can help you design a lot of good games. A storyline around "Apocalypse from the Sky" which will soon be cast in a city sounds like a LOT of fun, and a big race against the clock for the PCs..

or investigating a Vermine Lord's intelligent plague.. (or is it Cancer Mage?)

off course, Mortal Hunter is a must for most Outsiders who like to plays us.

(However, I think the "Disciples of" and "Thrall of" PrC should revamped to make them more Warlock-oriented.. mwahaha!)

Oh, yhea. Since BoVD was invented BEFORE Complete Arcane, there is no Warlock stuff. Which is sad, because Warlocks should have their own chapter in the Vile Darkness book...

Dan_Hemmens
2007-07-03, 12:19 PM
If you want to be able to do horrible stuff to people without an Alignment change, get BoED. You can use poison banes and disease ravages to your hearts content, you can lock people up and torture them sanctify the wicked, and of course raise legions of shambling undead Deathless to do your bidding.

skywalker
2007-07-03, 12:43 PM
BoED was the first D&D book I ever bought,(there's no reason to buy core, it's called the SRD.) and I still think it has some useful stuff in it. No, it's not useful at all to a CN Psion, but it is, as callix said, very useful for a paladin(which I tend to play.) If you're in love with being a true hero, then you should have book of exalted deeds on your shelf. Alot of the spells are actually useful regardless of whether or not you're fighting vile foes. The PrCs are sucky, but PrCs are sucky in general, for the most part.

Book of Exalted Deeds gets a bad rap for being slightly silly, but I kinda like its simple, this is good version of the world. In the end, the people who are universally defined by all people as good wind up fitting BoED's description.

Pestlepup
2007-07-03, 01:50 PM
Ahh... Just remembering my tiefling conjurer with a habit for torturing people. Good times. I like both, though you may find BoVD more useful. Besides, it has some fun prestige classes and very, very naughty spells. Keep an eye out for Disciple of Dispater, though. They'll ram your nasties' critical ranges through the roof along with your players. So it's just basically good, clean fun. :smallsmile:

Alleine
2007-07-03, 02:00 PM
Well, alignment change isn't a big problem. In fact, I'd really like to make my character be developed in front of everyone else so they'll have some backstory for a (possible) future villain. I haven't DM'd yet, but I've got ideas brewing.

Unfortunately the current campaign isn't going to last very long. In game it'll take roughly one year. So, I don't think there's a whole lot of room to make good use of either book. I really want to add flavor to my character, since the only books with any useful psionics things are EPH and ComPsi, which I have. I can't think of any books that would really help my character since I'm going to need just a few magic items for the entire campaign. There is really nothing to help out psionics characters that I've found outside of the psionics books.

For everyone who keeps suggesting other books, I really don't need any, between my group we have a lot of books, I mean a lot! We have a lot of the complete books(which don't fit the flavor of a psion at all), magic books, MMs, and a bunch of other things I don't feel like going through.

Thanks for the advice guys, it really helps!

PlatinumJester
2007-07-03, 03:08 PM
BoED is alot harder to use if you are a neutral character. BoVD can be used a lot by Neutral characters and is a lot more interesting since the poisons/spells/items/creatures/alumni were all varied and could be used by almost everyone (except paladins/knights).

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-03, 11:38 PM
All the Demonomicon of Iggwilv articles covered each of the Demon Lords not covered by BoVD(except for the upcoming final one, which features Demogorgon, again), except for Pale Night, who's so obscure few Material Plane scholars even know of her existence. They include stats(much more challenging than the ones in FC1), aspects(only in those that came after FC1 I think), and a Thrall class. Thrall of Malcanthet possibly being one of the more overpowered ones, since it's almost like Warhulk for Charisma(+8 Charisma over 10 levels? Who wouldn't want to serve the Queen? Limited to females with a decent Charisma though). Thrall of Kostchtchie and Thrall of Baphomet are more combat focused. Thralls of Dagon and Obox-Ob(Wait, maybe he's not featured either) are mixed. Pazuzu and Fraz'Urb-lu are more mage-focused. There's also a Thrall of Eltab Prestige Class in Champions of Ruin. Probably somewhere down the road they'll release the Complete Evil book featuring all the Disciples/Thralls. :smalltongue:

Callos_DeTerran
2007-07-04, 12:26 AM
All the Demonomicon of Iggwilv articles covered each of the Demon Lords not covered by BoVD(except for the upcoming final one, which features Demogorgon, again), except for Pale Night, who's so obscure few Material Plane scholars even know of her existence. They include stats(much more challenging than the ones in FC1), aspects(only in those that came after FC1 I think), and a Thrall class. Thrall of Malcanthet possibly being one of the more overpowered ones, since it's almost like Warhulk for Charisma(+8 Charisma over 10 levels? Who wouldn't want to serve the Queen? Limited to females with a decent Charisma though). Thrall of Kostchtchie and Thrall of Baphomet are more combat focused. Thralls of Dagon and Obox-Ob(Wait, maybe he's not featured either) are mixed. Pazuzu and Fraz'Urb-lu are more mage-focused. There's also a Thrall of Eltab Prestige Class in Champions of Ruin. Probably somewhere down the road they'll release the Complete Evil book featuring all the Disciples/Thralls. :smalltongue:

And you know what?....I'd totatlly but it. In a heartbeat. n.n....Wait...theres been a Demonimicon article for Obox-ob?!

mikeejimbo
2007-07-04, 12:44 AM
I say Vile Darkness, and become evil. Then slowly convert the rest of the party.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-07-04, 12:54 AM
I say Vile Darkness, and become evil. Then slowly convert the rest of the party.

I agree with this post.

Tobrecan
2007-07-04, 01:21 AM
As said, you'd probably get more out of BoVD because it doesn't care that you're CN, BoED just has too high of standards. I'm waiting for them to come out with the Book of 'Eh Whatever :smallamused:

Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-07-04, 02:14 AM
I don't the BOED had that high of standards. You know, don't be a D*CK? Help others? Sounds like pretty standard LG stuff.

Dhavaer
2007-07-04, 02:24 AM
I don't the BOED had that high of standards. You know, don't be a D*CK? Help others? Sounds like pretty standard LG stuff.

The 'always accept surrender, no matter what' clause is a little too far for sanity.

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-04, 04:38 AM
And you know what?....I'd totatlly but it. In a heartbeat. n.n....Wait...theres been a Demonimicon article for Obox-ob?!

I checked. Obox-ob does not have a Demonomicon article. Neither does Pale Night.

March 05(Pazuzu)
July 05, November 05, March 06, July 06(Baphomet, Fraz'urb-lu, Zuggtmoy, Kostchtchie. Don't remember which order, although probably F, B, Z, K)
November 06(Dagon)
March 07(Malcanthet)
July 07(Demogorgon)

mikeejimbo
2007-07-04, 12:02 PM
As said, you'd probably get more out of BoVD because it doesn't care that you're CN, BoED just has too high of standards. I'm waiting for them to come out with the Book of 'Eh Whatever :smallamused:

Yeah, the book of neutrality! I actually want that. The thing is, though, that there are kind of like two different kinds of neutral, and not just one on each axis: There's those who desire balance, and those who don't care. (The 'Eh Whatever being the latter). At least, that's how I've always seen it.

But anyway, that would have to be a big book to accommodate both those kinds of characters AND both axes of neutral alignment.

Um yeah, sorry. Tangent.

puppyavenger
2007-07-04, 12:15 PM
But I want Slaad Lords!!

The Vorpal Tribble
2007-07-04, 12:22 PM
The Book of Vile Deeds is, in all honesty, only for those who like slasher flicks. It is not even vile so much as just plain gross.

Also, it is obsolete, being both 3.0 and the fact that much of the demons, devils and other like stuff has been updated in both of the Fiendish Codex's.

Anout the only stuff in there I had any interest in was the Cancer Mage PrC and the rules for torture. Everything else was just made to be disgusting and little else.

If you are going for just plain scary go for Heroes of Horror. One of the best books out there and it deals more with being actually frightening instead of merely gratuitous gore.

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-04, 10:23 PM
The Book of Vile Deeds is, in all honesty, only for those who like slasher flicks. It is not even vile so much as just plain gross.

Also, it is obsolete, being both 3.0 and the fact that much of the demons, devils and other like stuff has been updated in both of the Fiendish Codex's.

Anout the only stuff in there I had any interest in was the Cancer Mage PrC and the rules for torture. Everything else was just made to be disgusting and little else.

If you are going for just plain scary go for Heroes of Horror. One of the best books out there and it deals more with being actually frightening instead of merely gratuitous gore.

To be fair, the diseases definitely evoked a sense of horror(and HoH probably took some inspiration from there, among other BoVD stuff). FC1 was a joke, giving incredibly toned-down versions of the BoVD Demon Princes. The demonic grafting inspired Fiend Folio's graft rules. As far as "disgusting", it was fairly tame. Stayed away from Paedophilia, and Zoophilia. In fact, about the worst they went was Necrophilia, which isn't nearly even as taboo as in the real world, seeing as non-mindless undead can technically grant consent...

Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-07-04, 11:17 PM
The 'always accept surrender, no matter what' clause is a little too far for sanity.

Really?

Huh. Like, I think, most of my good characters do that. I mean, they take precautions, but they accept surrender. I don't think thats crazy at all.

Dhavaer
2007-07-04, 11:23 PM
Really?

Huh. Like, I think, most of my good characters do that. I mean, they take precautions, but they accept surrender. I don't think thats crazy at all.

Let's say some guy sacrifices some orphan puppies, and you come and smite him, and he says "I surrender!"
So you capture him, and he escapes, and summons a demon that goes and slaughters a whole bunch of people. You beat the demon, find him, and he says "I surrender!"
So you capture him, and he escapes, and unleashes the Tarrasque, which eats a couple of cities. Eventually Big T goes back to sleep, find the guy, and he says "I surrender!"

Giving someone a second chance if they ask, yeah, I agree with that. Giving someone third, fourth, fifth, however many chances until you finally snap, kill them, and lose your Exalted status, no, that's just dumb.

Damionte
2007-07-04, 11:26 PM
Save your money for the next book. Neither book is really worth buying unless more than just you are interested in using the content.

Alleine
2007-07-05, 01:18 AM
But when will the next book be out? Chances are it'll be too long for my impatience to deal with.

AtomicKitKat
2007-07-05, 04:33 AM
The Book of Unbending Rules?
The Book of Unrestrained Anarchy?
The Book of Perfect Balance?

Xuincherguixe
2007-07-05, 06:08 AM
The book of too many nuts?

lumberofdabeast
2007-07-05, 08:24 AM
Complete Psionic 2, with more soul-crushing despair?

Corolinth
2007-07-05, 12:56 PM
Neither book is targeted at players (in fact, Book of Vile Darkness specifically tells you to hide it from your players).