Quote Originally Posted by mabriss lethe View Post
Here's the real problem. The source that UA and HoH both used for the Taint mechanic is Oriental Adventures. Oriental Adventures and the mechanic presented therein was setting specific.... Rokugan. Which was in fact adapted wholesale from the Legend of the Five Rings RPG. The original mechanic works very well in its home system(exploding d10)/setting. It converts horribly to D20 no matter how many times you try it. The corrupted warrior or whatever it's called, is adapted from the Maho Bujin prestige class presented in OA, as is the Blood sorceror...or whatever. It was the Maho Tsukai.

That, in a nutshell, is the problem with the Taint mechanic. It's for a completely different rpg system.
You guys have mentioned it can work with some serious homebrewing. Have you seen any Taint systems that have been reworked? Can you post the changes/links you'd suggest?

As for the thread, I own neither, but have looked over both, and I have to throw another vote in for Horror. The classes work much better for normal campaigns, and the monsters, suggestions, and so on are more intriguing.

Grab HoB when your group wants to set up(or powers up to the point) of doing a full-scale war. Good stuff for that. And that about it.