Trashes & Treasures: Older 3rd Party Sourcebooks, a Walking Tour

[Endless Rain]

It's been around a month since the last update. Are you still planning to continue the reviews?

[Saintheart]

I am, it's just been really busy at work - will get back to this ASAP.

[Yael]

Well, you just checked the dreaded (loved?) BoEF. Which I tend to allow mechanic-wise (some options can be refluffed to be less awkward, like the Metaphysical Spellshaper). Great review! But have you heard of the Nymphology 3rd party 3e book?

[Saintheart]

Well, you just checked the dreaded (loved?) BoEF. Which I tend to allow mechanic-wise (some options can be refluffed to be less awkward, like the Metaphysical Spellshaper). Great review! But have you heard of the Nymphology 3rd party 3e book?

Mongoose Publishing, 2002, same guys who did the Quintessentials that I've done a few reviews on so far. Massive label on it saying it's humorous and meant for adult readers. I'll add it to the list and probably get to it at some point, and it'll be interesting to see how the quality holds up from them. Interesting that these guys (as with a lot of Mongoose Publishing stuff, those guys were pumping out books like their lives depended on it) actually got the first sexually tilted d20 book out before Valar Project did but didn't draw anywhere near the fire Valar did.

[Yael]

Mongoose Publishing, 2002, same guys who did the Quintessentials that I've done a few reviews on so far. Massive label on it saying it's humorous and meant for adult readers. I'll add it to the list and probably get to it at some point, and it'll be interesting to see how the quality holds up from them. Interesting that these guys (as with a lot of Mongoose Publishing stuff, those guys were pumping out books like their lives depended on it) actually got the first sexually tilted d20 book out before Valar Project did but didn't draw anywhere near the fire Valar did.

Yeah, lots of books from Mongoose. Some are actually fun to use. Same with AEG's books, "Feats", "Evil", "Mercenaries", so forth. Man, there are just way too much 3.X books running around, you could kick a pebble and you'd hit 3 different 3rd party books.

Also, Book of Unlawful Carnal Knowledge... Not Mongoose (I think), but... Just why?

[Efrate]

If you are going to do nymphology, do the trifecta with quintessential temptress as well.

[Endless Rain]

Can we please not do reviews of other sex-focused books? BoEF was relevant because it was popular and had a sizable impact on the D20 license. The Mongoose sex-focused books are gross and irrelevant to anything and moving the thread in this direction is just going to get it locked.

[Yael]

Can we please not do reviews of other sex-focused books? BoEF was relevant because it was popular and had a sizable impact on the D20 license. The Mongoose sex-focused books are gross and irrelevant to anything and moving the thread in this direction is just going to get it locked.

Yeah, fair enough. There are lots of interesting books out there from 3rd party publishers.

[Saintheart]

Creature Collection, White Wolf Publishing

Spoiler

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Summary
The first book in White Wolf’s Scarred Lands setting, this is basically a third party monster manual with the awesome features of having beaten WOTC’s Monster Manual to the stands. If you want a slightly different take on your monsters, or a whole new set to complement those you’ve already got, step this way for another hundred or more creatures to put your players against (or indeed let your players take as characters, in a number of cases.)

Date of Publication and Page Count
October 2000, 223 pages (Revised edition: October 2002, 250 pages). In terms of writers and publishers, we get into the weird triptych of White Wolf, Sword & Sorcery Studios, and Necromancer Games.

White Wolf was a mainstay of the RPG industry. Formed in 1991, it published everything from Exalted to Pendragon to Monte Cook’s pouting Arcana Unearthed. What it’s perhaps most known for is the World of Darkness series of RPG books, of which Vampire: The Masquerade is probably the most recognisable. In its heyday WoD was second in sales only to D&D under TSR. But White Wolf got out of TTRPGs around 2012.

(By then it had been bought by EVE Online’s makers. Later, Paradox Interactive picked it up. The brand was erased from existence in 2018 due to political remarks made in a fifth edition Vampire: The Masquerade sourcebook. That said, White Wolf still seems to be “publishing” books online, so who knows where that money’s going. I hope it’s towards a decent Stellaris update).

Anyway, when 3rd edition D&D came along around 2000, White Wolf formed a separate ‘imprint’ – ostensibly a department, but really not much more than a label – to publish d20 books. This label was Sword & Sorcery Studio, which in turn labelled their publications “Sword & Sorcery”, likely for branding so their WoD customers wouldn’t get confused about which title they should buy. Making things even more complicated, White Wolf/Sword & Sorcery Studios then partnered with Necromancer Games to put out their first d20 books, because they weren’t familiar with the technicalities of publishing under the d20 licence. (Necromancer was being run by Clark Peterson and Bill Webb – who later published products like Tome of Horrors, which I’ve reviewed elsewhere).

Sword & Sorcery Studio would go on to release several d20/OGL products for third edition, whether on their own or in cooperation with other publishers: World of Warcraft, EverQuest, and their biggest coup, WOTC’s Ravenloft campaign setting (the latter of which seemed appropriate for obvious reasons.)

With the Creature Collection, Sword & Sorcery launched a new campaign setting, the Scarred Lands. The book briefly outlines the setting; the actual campaign setting texts came later. It was a marketing idea tried by a few third party publishers at the time: the book works as a third party monster manual, and might entice players to delve deeper into the setting, without the publisher having to risk writing an entire campaign setting without knowing if it’ll sell. The Scarred Lands was one of the lucky ones, spawning a number of splats and astutely proposing a sort-of-old-school setting with a strong odour of Conan – one where gods and titans raged across the world 150 years ago and there’s still much to be discovered in the aftermath of that conflict.

There were 18 authors on the original edition, including White Wolf’s co-founders, all much more familiar with World of Darkness (and given 3rd ed had only just been launched, it was hard to see how they could have been otherwise.)

Unfortunately, that unfamiliarity was painfully apparent in the original. It’s not a good start when your first listed creature, the Abandoned, has Power Attack but back calculation reveals his BAB is a big fat zero, making the feat unuseable (not to mention a bit pointless on a CR 0.5 creature). And not a good followup when your next creature, the Albadian Battle Dog, has STR 13, DEX 18, no Power Attack, and yet Improved Bull Rush when your main unique attack, lockjaw, doesn’t require a successful bull rush to trigger.

White Wolf issued some errata adjusting CRs and environments, but real fixes weren’t made until a revised edition was put out 2 years later, ostensibly as a 3.5 update. That book is Creature Collection I – Revised 3.5, published October 2002, and that’s the book I’m reviewing. That’s because (a) the mechanics are about fixed (b) no, really, the mechanics are a lot better and (c) it’s longer, at 250 pages and contains extra stuff from later Scarred Lands splats. The revisions are credited to Scott Greene and Jeff Harbeck, who look to have hung out mainly in Sword & Sorcery and Necromancer Games, although Scott Greene is still publishing now for fifth edition.

The book is still available from large mass market RPG publishers.

All features below are monsters unless otherwise indicated.

Notable Features
Abandoned (monster and template): Caveman. Sort of interesting on its own. Gets Power Attack. The character template allowing you to play one is 2 RHD and LA +1, but at least the stats are a bit better than what people usually give to a Big Beefy Bruiser: Large size, 40 feet movement, +5 Natural Armor, +8 STR, +4 CON, -4 INT, -4 CHA, free Track, and a racial stink similar to the Troglodyte (“Musk (Ex) - Fort DC 13 if you come within 10 feet of me or take a -2 on saves, checks, and attacks for 2d6 rounds”.)
Albadian Battle Dog: Good boi who gets to halve slashing damage against him because he’s got loose skin (awwww!). The lockjaw is nice because it’s a source of continuing damage and at least it doesn’t require a bloody Grapple check.
Alley Reaper: Great fluff. It’s the spirit of an assassin who died with blood on his hands, and who stages a reign of terror nightly over the ward or city in which it was killed. It is tied to the weapon and cloak it wielded in life, which are left behind during the day and where it materialises at night. If its cloak is removed, all that’s found is a collection of trophies from its victims. CR 3, not too strong, but has a nice fear-blasting attack and is incorporeal undead, this one works nicely as an encounter or a mini-adventure to track it down.
Asaalth: The fluff is strong. These are the degenerated descendants once a once-powerful snake-man race, and now, as nomads, know nothing but magic and battle in their doomed quest to restore their species to the pinnacle of importance. It’s a really good concept even through most of the stat block. They have a weak poison attack, +2 STR, +6 DEX, +2 CON, +2 INT, +4 WIS, +2 CHA, and cast spells “as 3rd level Wizards”, which is pretty nice given the race’s Favored Class is also Wizard. For this pack of features 3 racial hit dice is very much tolerable … but the level adjustment of +5, not so much. Seems to be intended to push in the direction of a gish, but that LA is just flat-out crushing.
Aquantis: It can walk on water and if the wind’s behind it, it theoretically can hit speeds of 100 feet per round. What’s not to like?
Bat Devil: Man-Bat, the monster. To play one, it takes LA +3 and racial hit dice of 2, which might be worth considering for DEX-based martial types or maybe even martial paladins given the stat bonuses: +2 STR, +8 DEX, +2 CON, +4 WIS, +4 CHA. Also gets a native Flight speed as a monstrous humanoid, which starts at 80 feet (poor), and 40 feet land speed.
Belsamaug: Great fluff once again. These are basically more tanky goblins that can only be seen in moonlight, and which at dawn meld into the Earth leaving behind a vulnerable basalt stone that, if broken, kills the goblin. Improved Invisibility on a CR 3 creature like this is interesting.
Blade Hood: It’s a ten-foot long and five-foot wide cobra that constricts and does 2d8+6 damage on a successful Grapple check. Its check is +12, and they give it a +4 on a charge attack and a 40 foot speed, which is kind of horrifying. Not bad at CR 3.
Blight Wolf: A wolf with (pretty useless) wings, with a DC 19 Fort poison bite that does 1d6 CON damage on initial and secondary, as well as a Howl that can panic if you fail its DC 15 Will save. CR 7 on it strikes me as a little generous for what it can do, its attacks otherwise are 1d8+3 plus poison. Still, 84 hitpoints, some flight, and DR 5/magic. Oh, and it’ll almost exclusively target Lawful Good opponents because it can sense them.
Bloodmare: No, it’s not a nightmare with the serial numbers filed off. These suckers are like the Pied Piper for normal horses, they draw off mounts and then run the horses to exhaustion, feeding on them when they drop. The main thing one might be interested in is their Tireless quality: bloodmares can run fron sundown to sunrise without tiring, though they tire in daylight hours like all other horses. The book suggests the possibility of capturing them and using them as warhorses, and given the DR 5/magic and 105 hitpoint count, it’s not a bad idea.
Butcher Spirit (template): The fluff is awesome. These are the remnant spirits of animals sacrificed to dark gods, who still haunt the places they lived and – depending on the animal – can be even more dangerous than they were in life. Their abilities include a gaze attack that dazes the target, and the spirit can then attempt to possess said dazed target, until sunrise. Also causes a creature to suffer a fear effect if the Butcher Spirit moves through them, “Something just flew in me” style. And, for those interested in charop, some fool said the level adjustment on this thing is the same as the base creature … meaning if you can somehow get yourself the animal type, it’s applicable to your character. Or, less roflworthy but probably more disturbing, sacrifice your wild cohort and in theory it can pick up this template. I can think of a certain section of Red Hand of Doom that could fit these beautifully and scare the hell out of the party.
Carnival Krewe: There’s a group of unique monsters under this category. While the name is eye-bleedingly uncool, the concepts are fantastic: basically taking figures of New Orleans legend and turning them into strong rulers of a bayou-ish area. Their entries contain lots of stuff inviting the DM to Rule Zero attempts to easily kill or frustrate them even if their stats are not mind-blowingly strong. It’s a really good set of concepts and builds, at least to my quick glance-over.
Golems (Bone, Copper, Lead, Mithril, Silver, Wood): The mechanics aren’t that much different from bog standard golems, but the fluff is just amazing for each and at least a little effort is made to distinguish them mechanically from the default kinds.
The Great Swan: Basically a swan … but if you’re really nice to it, it will give you +2 to your WIS score permanently, and gets Leadership without the prerequisites. No mention whether you can get multiple touches.
Manster: Mostly a melee grabber, except for one thing: it’s totally invisible in shadow if it stays still, though stuff like scent still works on it.
Manticora: A sort of wild humanoid with LA +2, but for that you pick up 40 feet speed (while quadruped; you can be biped too at 30 feet), +2 STR, +4 DEX, +4 CON, +2 natural armor, and you treat the Spiked Chain as a martial weapon rather than exotic. A feat saved is a feat saved.
Mill Slug: A giant slug, 20 feet long, 15 foot reach which is more or less meaningless because its DEX is 3 (although it’s pretty solid on attack bonus: +18 at CR 9 for 2d8+15 damage. Moves 20 foot per round. Low AC of 6 which it compensates for by having 184 hitpoints and DR 5/-. Also can crush you underneath its huge body. Obviously intended as something akin to a more dangerous Gelatinous Cube, Shivering Touch will shut it down like most other big solo beefies we tend to see, but absent that and in a relatively confined space this thing could be dangerous unless the party’s damage per round is high. Oh, and the fluff: Mill Slugs are called so because they’re attracted by the noise of windmills turning; it’s almost hypnotic to them. See what I mean about great fluff?
Marrow Knight: It’s an undead centaur skeleton, your argument is invalid.
Miser Jackal: Has nothing that reflects this mechanically, but the miser jackal is like a jackal crossed with a magpie: it loves to steal metal items and precious, shiny stuff, caching them in secret hiding places, and it has a whole hunting strategy based around it.
Moon Hag(template): Those more across theurgical monsters or characters can better advise on this than me, but I like any template/monster which says “you have to cast druid and sorcerer spells to qualify, but your levels stack for determining your spellcasting ability in each class.” So a Sor 5/Drd 4 who becomes a Moon Hag casts as a 9th level Druid and Sorcerer. LA of +7, but I’m a DM, so I don’t care about dirty player considerations like level adjustment 😊
Rumbler: It’s a giant crocodile-ish beast, but while it’s got you Grappled, it can unleash another roar and stun you as well as hit with sonic damage. Oh, and it has a limited form of ventriloquism too.

These are not the only great creatures in here, I might add. I’ve just hit the point where listing them all out would make the article way too long.


Dreadful Features
None, really.


Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Definitely best for GMs, though players might get something out of it. This is a great little volume of new monsters to work with.

Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics:
First thing is that the difference in mechanical usability between the original and the revised version is massive. That alone says that if you have to choose between the original and the revised, there’s no actual choice: the revised version is fixed, the original is not. Scott Greene and Jeff Harbeck seem to have really done a full check through of the mechanics, or at least brought into line with being functional. (That said, the revisions were still as at October 2002, i.e. only about 2 years after third edition was unleashed. I don’t want to leave the impression the mechanics were fixed with an eye to the 20-odd years of in-the-field testing and problems detected since then. All I’m saying is that they literally went from nonfunctional to working.)

Next, the writers seem to be aware PCs will want to make characters out of these beasts. There’s lots of templates to make playable characters, which I find a lot simpler than the eye-bleedingly bad set of rules WOTC left us with trying to build a PC out of a monster with nothing but “LA: Some ungodly number” to go on. Putting up such a decent number of templates to me speaks of a set of writers who actually thought about what their likely readers would want, both DMs and players.

Beyond that, though, the book stays reeeeeasonably conservative about using stats or introducing new, gamebreaking powers or stuff that really plays heavily with the 3.5 ruleset or statistics. I don’t know whether that was because of ignorance or – as I’d like to hope – they realised they’d be writing to an audience that they wanted to draw into their setting, so they didn’t introduce too many unfamiliar rules or abilities so as not to freak DMs out. For the most part, each monster has a twist on the standard mechanic you expect for a creature of its kind, and the extent to which you find this strong or not really depends on your campaign and proposed use in my view. If I had any particular criticism on this field, it’s probably that the LA is brutally crushing in a number of cases … but then that’s true of WOTC as well, so that’s more a fault of the system than this product specifically.

All round, 2.5/4 at this head.

On concepts and fluff:
This is where the book really shines. Page after page after page of beautiful concepts and inspiring fluff for monsters. It’s a different feel, a different take on the standard D&D trundling lump of hitpoints. Even better, the concepts and fluff are not left hiding behind a massive, involved setting to absorb like Eberron or the Forgotten Realms. This book was built to straddle the line between setting text and general-use bestiary, and on the second leg at least it’s great: the fluff is compact and stand-alone enough that you can actually drag and drop most if not all of these monsters into any of your generic campaign worlds without a problem. I mean, take another look at the concepts above: we’ve got everything from vengeful assassin spirits to magical swans to damn Dark Carnival types all in the same text. I think it’s probably here the World of Darkness influence is most apparent, if anywhere, because the take on the monsters is flavoured old-school and a more gothic, sharp-teeth approach than most WOTC products ever got to. But neither is it anywhere near the edgelord feel of a Vampire: the Masquerade monster manual either – it is its own thing.

If you want a valid comparison, just take a few fluff entries from the MM I and compare them to the fluff entries from this book. Don’t compare the stats, just the fluff. And then remember that this book – the fluff at least – predates WOTC’s own Monster Manual, they literally got it out before the makers of the damn game did. I believe you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

That said, the Scarred Lands setting doesn’t terribly inspire me that much on a short read. It’s clearly Conan-inspired, low-er-ish magic and in the wasteland aftermath of a titanic war between gods and titans. As said, the book was likely designed as a teaser for future SSS products and I personally didn’t find that much inspiring about it (albeit it does play into the sometimes-unspoken idea that all D&D campaigns are happening in a post-apocalyptic world.) Your mileage may vary. But the book succeeds so well as an independent bestiary that it overshadows the purpose as a teaser anyway!

3.5/4 on this one.

On presentation:
Standard black and white throughout, and the illustrations are mostly line drawings or ink jobs which aren’t terribly fantastic, but then I could understand not blowing the budget on it. Layout is otherwise similar to a Monster Manual, two columns of text, stats in a different, smaller font. None of the fonts are as objectionable as Green Ronin’s eye-bleeding choices, so this one I give a 1/2.

Total: 7/10. More joy in the fluff than the mechanics, but it should be the fluff that we enjoy reading.


Next Time: Monster’s Handbook, Fantasy Flight Games.

[Thurbane]

Hmm, sounds like Creature Collection may be worth a look as a DM...

[Caelestion]

I had the original Creature Collection and Relics & Rituals. The latter didn't even bother to include prices for the magic items!

[Fizban]

Relics & Rituals. The latter didn't even bother to include prices for the magic items!

Not so much didn't bother as they specifically say they made a choice not to include prices because something something. Which means they fundamentally failed to grasp one of the points of 3rd edition, but considering how early the books were it's not surprising that could go over their head (or indeed that the people making 3rd realized themselves just how fundamental they were making that point). It's a setting that doesn't match the game it's in, which for 3rd ed is basically baked into the system. The better choice would have been to remove creation of magic items entirely so that existing items actually are priceless.

I somewhat recently combed through Relics and Rituals to see if there was stuff to add to my list of 3rd party stuff to use. It's not OGC, so naturally that means there was in fact something worth keeping- but it was one spell. One perfectly written spell, and also a bunch of unimportant classes, spells ranging from meh to various levels of broken and many of which can be found elsewhere (though usually with excellent flavor text and history), items that don't have prices which could only be unique based on pricing methods, and a ritual magic system for which there are again plenty of other versions out there and which is inevitably tied to setting expectations. Was a bit disappointing considering it was one of the first splatbooks I ever saw.

I kinda like the setting in the abstract, stuff like the spell draining spear spell which is supposed to have been used en-mass to deplete a fraction of a titan's power so it could be defeated- but that's not how the mechanics work at all. They added a second reason armor messes with arcane magic, a necessary hack since ASF has never really worked, but it also links into the "Conan" aesthetic, if you want to call it that, with arcanists going topless or dumping their clothes every battle to avoid overheat. And so on.

[Malphegor]

I had the original Creature Collection and Relics & Rituals. The latter didn't even bother to include prices for the magic items!

I got relics and rituals for 50p once online, including postage. Was a mental deal. Some of these third party books are dirt cheap because nobody’s sure if they’re worth anything to anyone, which is great if one wants some oddball ideas

[Caelestion]

The rituals had some really cool ideas in them, to be fair.

[vasilidor]

I loved reading through creature collection.

[Saintheart]

Monster’s Handbook, Fantasy Flight Games

Spoiler

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Summary
This is a book designed to modify monsters. If you thought the monsters in the MM were getting a bit tired, here’s a guide that’s meant to give you lots of tools to change things up a bit.

Date of Publication and Page Count
December 2002, 170 pages. This was out about 6 months before WOTC released 3.5, and as such we’re looking at a third edition book. That said, given the subject of the book, not much really is affected by the book aside from glorious references to partial actions.

Fantasy Flight Games is another of those big businesses whose main draw these days is board games, having more or less gotten out of TTRPGs. Indeed FFG was bought out by a French board game company a couple of years back, around the same time its founder retired from the company. The place has been around since 1995, not many entertainment companies in our part of geekdom have had that sort of longevity.

FFG’s foray into the d20 world was with its Legends & Lairs books, similar to White Wolf having its Sword & Sorcery Studios. Legends & Lairs, at least to start with, also bore the ‘d20 System’ label, i.e. WOTC’s trademark of the d20 ruleset, and which disappeared shortly after 3.5 and the Book of Erotic Fantasy put third party publishers off having to submit to licence requirements. There were a goodly number of sourcebooks made under the Legends & Lairs label, which is not to say that any real changes were made to the ruleset, it was basically just FFG distinguishing itself from WOTC by the looks of it.

So who did FFG get to write this thing anyway?

Well, at least we don’t have to look a lot of people up. The sole credited writer for the book is Mike Mearls, as in, the guy who went on to build fourth edition D&D and guide fifth edition as well, and whose work I had a look at in Malhavoc Press’s Book of Iron Might. Have a look at that review if you want a bit more about Mearls, but suffice it to say the guy has a very long history of credits, and especially in this, the 2000 – 2005 time periods when he was still freelance and about to be hired by WOTC. The book’s lead developer (read: likely the editor), Wil Upchurch, also went on to work for WOTC: he has publication credits on Champions of Ruin and Mysteries of the Moonsea … and co-wrote the original Midnight RPG, too.

FFG’s third edition D&D books don’t seem to be available its website. However, this might just be a case of departmental reshuffles: certain mass market websites reveal the Legends & Lairs books are still being published by “EDGE Studio”, which, when you track them down, describe themselves as “the premier roleplaying games studio in the Asmodee Group” … i.e. the French company that owns FFG. And which seems to be publishing the current Star Wars RPG, the current (5th) edition of Midnight (I reviewed the 2nd edition earlier in this thread), Legend of the Five Rings, and Genesys. So, while it might not be available from FFG, the book is still available on mass market RPG websites.

Notable Features
Adept of the Inner Power (Prestige Class): This is meant for aberration monsters, but the prerequisites do not specifically include that you have the aberration type, and some of its features are potentially solid given the right build. It requires “any innate supernatural or spell-like ability”, 8 ranks in Knowledge Arcana, 3rd level arcane spellcaster. It only advances 2/5 casting … but. But. It’s centred around blurring the line between spell-like, supernatural abilities, and spells. For a start, it allows you to apply metamagic feats to spell-like abilities or supernatural abilities. None of this $#!% around Supernatural Transformation and only being able to apply to (Sp) abilities that map to actual spells, screw it, Empower Spell, you’re outright applying *1.5 multipliers to all numerical values related to the ability, including covering wider areas. And that’s the first level, mind you, you could dip that, blow one caster level, and then go on your merry way picking up metamagic feats and (Sp) or (Su) abilities to your heart’s content. The next couple levels then boost your DCs and CL checks for your spell-like abilities, which is nice. Then we get to third level. If our supernatural or spell-like ability duplicates a spell, we can substitute a different spell of the same school and the same or lower level for that ability. Your Fear (Sp) ability can be swapped for a Blindess/Deafness (Sp) instead, it’s Necromancy school.

Elemental Druids and Rangers! While the options in the Elementals chapter aren’t terribly overpowered, I did appreciate a little bit of love had gone into discussing these poor scions of the classical five components of reality. This bit, on elemental PCs who play druids or rangers, was nice. In particular, elementals can have animal elemental companions: animal friendship can be used to gain planar creatures as companions, to wit elemental druids or rangers can have up to half their HD in elemental creatures that share a subtype designator with them. This, of course, immediately invites one to ask whether a fire elemental ranger of, say, 14 HD can have a wyrmling red dragon as his little friend. Probably not since what’s probably intended is the elemental type, but still – nice touch.

Summon Classed Elementals! Yep, use your summon monster spell to summon an element with a certain number of class levels. Basically, summon either the standard elemental for the spell or one whose levels and base CR equal the standard element’s base CR. Yes, including spellcasters, and the summoned elemental brings material components for its spells. (However, you beady-eyed munchkins, if you take that diamond from the elemental that it was keeping for its Raise Dead spell, the elemental and its components immediately disappear, and the components can’t be shared with them. This is just a lovely, obvious shift in approach for summoning monsters and gives elementals a new lease on life.

GIANT. LORD. (template) Add to any giant. For zero LA and zero extra HD, just pick up +8 INT, +6 CHA, +4 WIS. Oh, and two feats. And four “ranks” to spend on skills as they wish. Just in case you thought the Primordial Giant template wasn’t strong enough.

Half-Titan (template) Add to any giant. Type changes to outsider. At ill alter self, levitate, invisibility, mirror image, DR 10/+1, Spell Resistance 15. +6 to STR, +4 CON, +6 INT, +4 WIS, +2 CHA, gains Alertness and Blind-fight. CR +2, but no level adjustment. Just in case you thought Primordial Giant and Giant Lord weren’t powerful enough.

Pick Up (new combat rule for giants): Finally something akin to what I’ve always wanted to do with smaller creatures one size category smaller! I pick them up while not being foiled by the attack of opportunity made against me (albeit the damage dealt on the AoO can be added to the grapple check to escape my grasp). Then I can squeeze them, or stow them away for later eating, or throw them!

Ardent Protector (prestige class): It’s a quick five levels, but not bad for people who want to play in the “bodyguard” or attack of opportunity space. First level ability is basically Stand Still, use an AoO to force an opponent to stop moving rather than inflict damage. Get +1 AoO per round at the same time, use Deflect Arrows on an ally, make tumbling past him a lot harder, Improved Trip on an AoO, count as full cover, intercept AoOs on allies, intercept attacks.

Distance Disruption (feat): Ready an action to fire a missile weapon at a spellcaster who attempts to use a spell. When the person casts, roll against AC 10. If you hit, the target has to make a DC 15+spell level Concentration check. So you exchange the difficulty of the Concentration check for a much more reliable chance of forcing the check at all.

Creature Modification! In the humanoids/monstrous humanoids chapter we have this subsystem that allows you to stitch viper’s fangs on an orc’s mouth, add to gnoll muscle mass by implanting organs from a carnivorous ape. You know, all very sedate and reasonable stuff. Some of it is useful in giving a humanoid a natural attack (claws, fangs, horns), or granting the ability to scent, breathe underwater, extra natural armor, or wings. Maybe the most interesting is altering a humanoid to give it an untyped and therefore stackable +6 to an ability stat at 40k for each operation, albeit that also raises the creature’s CR by 1. Very cool concept even if mechanically it’s a bit limited.

Godling: Really interesting prestige class that allows an outsider to slowly ascend toward godhood based on the worship of his devoted followers. Not meant for PC use, it’s meant to be the Big Bad of a cult that the party fights over a sustained campaign.

Gate Attack: Well, in case you needed to make summoned beatsticks any stronger, this feat allows you to have those allies gain Pounce on their first action in the encounter, and “the summoning creature opens a gate in such a manner that its allies may leap upon its enemies and attack in one motion”. The prerequisite is “ability to summon allied creatures as an innate ability”. Immediately the response is ‘druids and summoners aren’t locked out by that’, though RAI it’s clear this was meant for outsiders who summon.

Teleport Attack: Prerequisite is ability to teleport via spell or innate ability. Use a standard action to teleport, bampf next to your opponent, make a melee attack as part of the same standard action … and the opponent is denied DEX bonus to AC. Not as good as it looks since it’s specific to teleport, not Ethereal Jaunt or martial maneuvers, but for a melee-focused Unseen Seer build this could be pretty nice.

Gem of Many Shapes (magic item): 10,000 gp. You know the City Wild Shape ACF for druids? Here it is for 10 grand. You can turn into an inanimate object, which is handy for disguise.

Metamorphic Paragon (prestige class): This might not be a shapeshifter’s moist dream, but it’s something. At the top of 10 levels, you pick 3 CR 10 creatures. You can use those creatures’ (Ex), (Su), (Sp) abilities while in their forms and limited use when you’re in your normal form. At the bottom end, it’s pick 3 CR 3 creatures and get to pick up their (Ex), (Su) and (Sp) abilities while in that form. BAB 5/10, Good Will, Bad Fort and Ref. Have to be doppelganger or phasm and have 8 ranks in Knowledge Arcana and Spellcraft … but while it requires a Spell Focus feat, it doesn’t require spellcasting. Doppelgangers get access to Able Learner, which makes these class skills in effect and a pretty decent whack of skill points, meaning qualification could happen pretty early. If you know your monsters this might be worth considering.

Student of 1000 Forms (prestige class): It makes the monk a little better in 5 levels, not that this is high bar to get over. Get reach, get a natural weapon attack, levels in prestige class stack with monk levels for most abilities, get a pool of points to spread among STR, DEX, CON, natural armor, and damage bonus 10+CON rounds per day. The pool is interesting since for example it can be spread across the day – some for combat, some for resisting poison, some for a skill use and so on.

Burst of Fury (feat): Shapechanger plus another useless feat (Rapid Transformation, which allows you to change shape as a free action once per round). Full attack gets squashed into a standard action.

Ultimate Partial Transformation (feat): Lycanthropes only. You gain the animal form’s ability score modifiers, special abilities, special qualities, feats and skills in your humanoid form. Takes a DC 15 Control Shape check. Doesn’t say whether “gain” means your STR mod stacks with that of your human form or replaces it. Let’s hope it’s the former.

Splintered Shapeshifter (template): You can change your class as well as your shape. e.g. a 5th level rogue splintered doppelganger in the form of a dwarf becomes a 5th level fighter. Takes the idea of the skillmonkey to a whole new level.

Fury of the Dead (feat): Undead but can rage. Want your CON score to count as 20 for the purposes of calculating the length of your rage? Well, now it does.

Grim Reaper (feat): Undead. Take a -2 to AC, get a +2 to melee attacks.

Relentless Grip (feat): Undead. When initiating a grapple, the opponent’s AoO doesn’t prevent you from commencing a grapple.

Speaker of the Dead (feat): You have to be undead, and have Spell Focus (Enchantment), but undead are not immune to mind-influencing effects, sleep, paralysis, or stunning caused by spells you cast. (Charm Person still doesn’t work, though, because undead aren’t of the humanoid type).

Bloated (template): Horrible rotting corpse template. Main quality is that when they hit 0 hitpoints, their bodies explode and do 1d6 per 2 HD of untyped damage to everyone in a 20 foot radius (Reflex DC 15 save). And everyone in a 20 foot radius is affected by a 10th level Contagion spell.

Dreadful Features
None, but there’s a fair deal of meh in the book.


Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both)
Definitely GMs. This thing is designed to modify monsters, it’s not really usable by players.


Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
On mechanics:
Context: in 3.0 the dominant philosophy was that monsters should follow similar-ish rules for construction to PCs. They had rules for expansion, meant to make them predictable, and enable a DM to see how strong they were. Build ‘em mathematically and you’ll have a precise idea of how powerful the monster is. This was also the philosophy that persisted through most of 3.5 as well. And, as we’ve seen with 20 years of experience, this assurance was high-priced baloney.

Running 3.5, you’re stuck with the miserable, complex, and unintuitive system of advancing monsters by hit dice. You’re working with concepts like Effective Character Level (ECL), Level Adjustment (LA), Racial Hit Dice (RHD), Challenge Rating (CR), stuff that’s so misunderstood that eventually Ur-Priest from GITP must have screamed in frustration one fine morning and smashed out an entire handbook on how monsters actually work.

Anyway, Mearls seemed aware even outside WOTC that the CR system resembled a cowpen floor had issues, because early on he introduces the concept of relative CR: there’s flat CR, and then there’s relative CR. Relative CR is the attempt to reflect the fact that not all abilities are useful across the board. The example Mearls puts forward is that casting magic missile as a 1st level sorcerer is a significant upgrade for a goblin, but it’s practically meaningless on a titan. A goblin’s CR rises given such an ability, but the titan’s does not.

This was significant since the book is touted as an easy-modification guide for monsters, but it doesn’t open with a whack of templates and monster prestige classes. Instead, it opens with a point buy system for creating new special abilities.

The book is immediately interesting because it reveals the thinking in mind behind monster design in 3.0: “ To keep a creature balanced, you should almost always grant it additional HD as its CR increases. The creature’s increased CR means it must have the ability to face off against more powerful adventurers than before. Thus, it needs more hit points, skills, and feats to support its new special ability and make it a viable opponent. In the case of a creature with many dangerous special abilities, like the ogre mage, it may be appropriate to keep its HD low since the creature can challenge the party while avoiding damage and combat. As a general rule, for every one point the creature’s CR increases, grant it two additional HD as per the standard rules for advancing a creature.” This one paragraph suddenly makes the whole hit dice formula and calculation nightmare a lot easier to understand, shameful as it is for me to admit that, but even more shameful that WOTC never really spelled this out … or if they did, made the monster modification mechanics so inaccessible that I’ve never seen them actually express it like this.

Mearls reduces various monster special abilities –a lot of them -- down to a measure of CPs, or Challenge Points. In the case of spell-like abilities, the foundation rule is that 100 CP = +1 CR, with adjustments made for how much it’s used, how useful it is in combat, caster level, whether it has a saving throw, and so on. Stuff like supernatural effects, free action activation, touch attacks, etc, etc, are all given CP values or multipliers which allow one to calculate the CR. I was immediately attracted by this system because while the subject of creating new templates is passed over briefly in default 3.5, I don’t remember any really granular system to create a true bolt-on template of abilities from the ground up.

On top of that, he uses much the same system to allow a DM to build new spell-like abilities as well.

Does it work?

Well … the only real test I think you can put it to is, as I’ve done in previous thread entries on DM-ly tools, is grab a poor defenceless monster from the SRD and fiddle with it.

Let’s start with a poor old CR 1 wolf:

Spoiler: Poor old wolf stats

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Hit Dice: 2d8+4 (13 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 50 ft. (10 squares)
Armor Class: 14 (+2 Dex, +2 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 12
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/+2
Attack: Bite +3 melee (1d6+1)
Full Attack: Bite +3 melee (1d6+1)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Trip
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +1
Abilities: Str 13, Dex 15, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6
Skills: Hide +2, Listen +3, Move Silently +3, Spot +3, Survival +1*
Feats: Track, Weapon Focus (bite)
Environment: Temperate forests
Organization: Solitary, pair, or pack (7-16)
Challenge Rating: 1
Advancement: 3 HD (Medium); 4-6 HD (Large)

Now, wolves aren’t too bad with their Trip attacks, but I reckon wolves aren’t scary enough, and I think it should be their eyes that make them intimidating. So, we’re going to have our wolf not only cast Fear at the minimum caster level, but we’ll also make it a gaze attack and just to be silly, we’ll make it usable at will, and also, give it no saving throw. This means it’s not a spell-like ability anymore but rather akin to a supernatural ability, so, yeah.

Spoiler: Discussion

Show

Fear is a third level spell to Bards, so that gives us a base cost of 200 CP.
It's usable at will, which adds another +100 CP.
It has no save, which adds +200 CP.
It’s a gaze attack, which adds another +200 CP.
It's supernatural, which adds another +100 CP

Total: 800 CP. This equates to +8 to the creature’s CR, making it a total of 9. We don’t increase sizes under this system when advancing animals, so what we then have …

Spoiler: No save fear-blasting wolf

Show

Size/Type: Medium Animal
Hit Dice: 18d8+64 (136 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 50 ft. (10 squares)
Armor Class: 14 (+2 Dex, +2 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 12
Base Attack/Grapple: +12/+7/+2
Attack: Bite +16 melee (1d6+4)
Full Attack: Bite +16/+11/+6 melee (1d6+4)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Trip
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent, Fear Gaze Attack (Su): As the spell, no saving throw.
Saves: Fort +13, Ref +13, Will +7
Abilities: Str 16(+3), Dex 16(+3), Con 15(+2), Int 2, Wis 12(+1), Cha 6
Skills: Hide +2, Listen +3, Move Silently +3, Spot +3, Survival +1*
Feats: Track, Weapon Focus (bite)
Challenge Rating: 9

CR 9? Well, judging by the good old average stats metrics, the hitpoints are right, the AC is horribly low, and the saves are sort-of in the range for a CR 9 creature. But realistically it’s dead on a ranged or kiting approach by something that can deliver damage outside 30 foot range. It has a weak Will save, but the CR system does at least allow for creatures that are easy if handled right.

But because the book doesn’t make it exactly clear that adding a supernatural or spell-like ability changes the creature’s type to Magical Beast, we don’t get any extra feats. Animals don’t pick up any feats at all. So this thing misses out on at least two feats, which I would allocated to Power Attack and Combat Reflexes, and which would have made it much more credible at CR 9. Don’t get me wrong, the no-save spell is good, but absent those additions it’s straightforward to kill once the party gets over its initial shock.

Next, I decided to chopshop the Piranha Swarm from Stormwrack and give them wings. Yes. We’re going to make flying piranhas.

Spoiler: Default Piranha Swarm

Show

Tiny Animal (Aquatic, Swarm)
Hit Dice: 8d8+11 (47 hp)
Initiative: +6
Speed: Swim 40 ft. (8 squares)
Armor Class: 15 (+2 size, +2 Dex, +1 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/—
Attack: Swarm (3d6)
Full Attack: Swarm (3d6)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Distraction
Special Qualities: Half damage from slashing and piercing weapons, low-light vision, scent, swarm traits
Saves: Fort +7, Ref +8, Will +3 Abilities: Str 4, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 2
Skills: Hide +10, Listen +9, Spot +8, Swim +5
Feats: Alertness, Improved Initiative, Toughness
Challenge Rating: 4

Distraction (Ex): Any living creature vulnerable to the piranha swarm’s damage that begins its turn with a swarm in its square is nauseated for 1 round; a DC 15 Fortitude save negates the effect. Even with a successful save, spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm requires a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills requiring patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Concentration check. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Swarm Traits (Ex): See page 316 of the Monster Manual.

Skills: A piranha swarm has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform a special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.

Spoiler: We’re ready for our closeup Mr Cameron

Show

We’re not going to completely cheese it, so we’re just going to add two abilities: flight and the ability to breathe outside water.
Flight: 100 CP base, which covers a flight speed of 1.5xthe creature’s base speed and average maneuverability. Thus, 60 feet flight ability. Upgrades to maneuverability cost 50 CP each, so let’s just raise that to Good. And it’s another 50 CP for an extra 20 feet per round.
100 CP to fly
50 for 20 extra feet
50 for Good maneuverability

The air breathing we’ll pick up by an Air Breathing spell-like ability, Cleric 3, also from Stormwrack. That gives us 2 hours/level, so 10 hours at Cleric 3.
Base cost of 200 CP.
It's usable at will, which adds another +100 CP.
Non damaging but useful in combat, -100 CP.
Supernatural ability, +100 CP.

Total: 500 CP, or +5 to CR. Once again, we’re at CR 9.


Tiny Animal (Aquatic, Swarm)
Hit Dice: 18d8+21 (102 hp)
Initiative: +7
Speed: Swim 40 ft. (8 squares), Fly (Good) 80 feet
Armor Class: 16 (+2 size, +3 Dex, +1 natural), touch 15, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +12/—
Attack: Swarm (4d6)
Full Attack: Swarm (4d6)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Distraction
Special Qualities: Half damage from slashing and piercing weapons, low-light vision, scent, swarm traits, can cast [i]Air Breathing[/u] at will as a 5th level cleric.
Saves: Fort +12, Ref +14, Will +7
Abilities: Str 4(-4), Dex 17(+3), Con 12 (+1), Int 1, Wis 12(+1), Cha 2
Skills: Hide +10, Listen +9, Spot +8, Swim +5
Feats: Alertness, Improved Initiative, Toughness

Distraction (Ex): Any living creature vulnerable to the piranha swarm’s damage that begins its turn with a swarm in its square is nauseated for 1 round; a DC 15 Fortitude save negates the effect. Even with a successful save, spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm requires a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills requiring patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Concentration check. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Swarm Traits (Ex): See page 316 of the Monster Manual.

Skills: A piranha swarm has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform a special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line

Swarms work a bit differently to normal creatures, but to me this still feels okay for a CR 9. Swarm traits make it harder to hit, it has a good amount of hitpoints, and it takes half damage from most conventional weapons, which is nice. This one isn’t too bad.

So, yeah. On that huge sample size of two, the system for adding abilities to monsters seems to work all right and is tied closely to the 3.0 CR system. It makes a nice set of rules for judging the CR of new abilities.

That then moves us on to the rest of the book. There’s a decent-ish chapter about monster tactics that should’ve been in the DMG, and then we get into a series of chapters that give more specific advice to DMs about the classes, feats, skills, equipment and magic items that different monster types should have or should consider. Aberrations, Dragons, Elementals, Fey, Giants, Humanoid/Monstrous Humanoid, Outsiders, Shapechangers, Undead – these are all covered in their own chapters. Look, the advice is Core and 3.0 based, don’t expect a fantastical tactical analysis that people on the boards could come up with, but I can appreciate the effort that was gone to; it’s more than WOTC ever really gave DMs to work with.

All up, it’s probably the points system that most shines, even if all it’s doing is to try and work with WOTC’s wonky CR system. 3/4 on this one.


On concepts and fluff:
I was pleasantly surprised that Mearls actually did put more effort than WOTC into giving advice that you can actually work with. It’s not fantastic tactical advice, but it’s better than nothing. I do think there’s some nice stuff in here in terms of slight variants to rules or stuff that makes the various types a little bit more special than they were. But I do keep coming back to the CP concept and how it gives you a more granular way of adding stuff to creatures and assessing how much more powerful it makes them (or not.) 3/4 on this one.

On presentation:
Standard two-column format, black and white all the way through. Some nice illustrations. 1/2 here.

Total: 7/10.


Next Time: Kingdoms of Kalamar Campaign Setting, Kenzer & Co.

[Kalkra]

When you say the templates have no LA, doesn't most 3e stuff have no listed LA, because it was only invented by Savage Species? Speaking of which, the SS Web Enhancement has some stuff about where LA comes from. Linky. Also, being able to get a full attack as standard action for a feat seems pretty good, considering that the alternative is to take a dip for Pounce. Also, I'll mention that if you can change shapes as a free action, and you get (Su) abilities, you can do some funny things with Blink Dogs. The main cheese there is Mulhorandi Divine Minion plus Exalted Wild Shape, but it seems like you can also do it with stuff from Monster's Handbook.

Also, how does applying metamagic to things without a spell slot work? And does it only work for certain metamagic feats, or is there a more general thing?

[Saintheart]

Also, how does applying metamagic to things without a spell slot work? And does it only work for certain metamagic feats, or is there a more general thing?

It works for most of the Core metamagic feats, with the notable exception of Quicken Spell, dammit. :)

As to how applying metamagic to (Su) or (Sp) abilities, it draws heavily on the assumption that virtually all spell-like abilities or supernatural abilities key off or duplicate an existing spell effect, which allows you to calculate the "level" of the spell-like ability (caster level keying off hit dice and CHA mod in most cases). There are strictures on it - you can't use the metamagic to increase the ability's "level" by more than 1 at least to start with - but yeah, it basically takes the idea that the (Sp) at least usually has a spell level by dint of the spell it's not-casting :)

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Honestly, that "relative CR adjustment" should have been in the core rules to begin with. Adding a pile of stat increases or a couple of low level SLAs are wonderful things at lower CR but mean less the higher you go. Therefore really no good reason for both to be +X CR when the former is more than doubling the base creature's damage or AC bonus and the latter is a drop in the bucket.

It does make me wonder if there are any or corner cases where a template gives less of an impact on lower CR creatures than higher CR ones. The only thing I can think of are ones where the SLAs granted depend on HD and higher HD creatures eventually get things like Dictum or Holy Word.

[Saintheart]

Honestly, that "relative CR adjustment" should have been in the core rules to begin with. Adding a pile of stat increases or a couple of low level SLAs are wonderful things at lower CR but mean less the higher you go. Therefore really no good reason for both to be +X CR when the former is more than doubling the base creature's damage or AC bonus and the latter is a drop in the bucket.

It does make me wonder if there are any or corner cases where a template gives less of an impact on lower CR creatures than higher CR ones. The only thing I can think of are ones where the SLAs granted depend on HD and higher HD creatures eventually get things like Dictum or Holy Word.

Dunno about templates, but I can think of an ability like Blade of Blood in (Sp) form having more of an impact on a higher CR creature only because it doesn't cost the high CR creature as much of its life to activate it. A kobold using Blade of Blood might get a single +1d6 or something to its damage, but it'll half kill itself doing so. Not so much a hydra or similar.

[Feldar]

I had the original Creature Collection and Relics & Rituals. The latter didn't even bother to include prices for the magic items!

To be fair, if it had folks would be debating the prices endlessly.

I actually have this book sitting on my shelf. It has some interesting ideas.

[Caelestion]

Yes, I liked the concept of the rituals a lot.

[Saintheart]

Kingdoms of Kalamar Campaign Setting, Kenzer & Co.

Spoiler

Show

Summary
Need verisimilitude? Want to know a lot more about Kalamar, Kenzer’s setting for D&D? Well, here’s a rundown of the entire world, kingdom by kingdom.

Date of Publication and Page Count
March 2001, 272 pages. This is technically the third edition of the book, the earlier editions being July 1994 and March 1995, i.e. Kingdoms of Kalamar as a setting has actually been around longer than you might first think.

KoK’s original editions were declared compatible for use with AD&D editions but carefully avoided trademark or copyright infringement, i.e. they were doing third party splatbooks before it was cool. It had some cult status attached to it in that the distribution wasn’t wide, but it had a hard core of fans, enough at least to presumably keep Kenzer in business anyway.

TSR, who owned D&D at the time, never sued Kenzer for these books despite a famously aggressive attitude on copyright. Leaving aside that TSR was on the verge of bankruptcy in the 90s, and the wobbly argument about whether publishing something compatible with D&D’s system is copyright infringement, that might have been because the guy with his name on the company, David Kenzer, is actually an intellectual property attorney, and therefore presumably would not have been a soft target.

This set of factoids features somewhat in why KoK, unlike virtually any third party sourcebook of its ilk, has the “Official D&D” logo stamped on it and technically counts as a canon setting for third edition.

On 1 November 2000, WOTC announced via a press release that Kingdoms of Kalamar would become an official D&D world. The two half-books that made up the earlier campaign setting texts were slapped together with 100,000 more words, and here we have the third edition campaign setting.

But it wasn’t so much that WOTC really accepted KoK was a great setting so much as that they were sort-of forced into it in order to end a lawsuit. See, Kenzer & Co. didn’t just publish RPGs. They also held the rights of republication for a comic strip called Knights of the Dinner Table, which appeared in Dragon magazine during AD&D’s run. This strip was about a gaming group that played a (then fictional) parody of AD&D called Hackmaster. (The author of that strip was also a contributor to the Kalamar series of books, it might be added.)

Wizards of the Coast republished these magazines in its Dragon Magazine Archive CD. Doing so, they – according to Kenzer’s lawsuit that followed – infringed on Kenzer’s right to publish the strip, and accordingly were liable for civil damages. Like most lawsuits, the matter was settled. And the terms of said settlement were solid for Kenzer: first, WOTC gave Kenzer the right to use the first party logos, as if Kalamar products were WOTC products, until 2008. This was a massive point of distinction for Kenzer against all its competitors of the time. And second, Kenzer got a licence to publish first edition AD&D (which likely WOTC thought wasn’t a bad thing to give away since they were in third edition by then), but which in turn allowed Kenzer to create Hackmaster as a freestanding RPG.

So far as this book is concerned, it does not appear from the credits that WOTC had much, if any, involvement in its writing or editing. None of the names are familiar from third edition of the time as far as I know, and the design and writing was done mainly by David Kenzer himself and his collaborators who’d been around a while.

Kenzer himself, unlike a lot of RPG designers of the time, still seems to be around and is still president of the company named after him. They still maintain the KoK setting even if it was cut loose from WOTC an edition or two ago, and Knights of the Dinner Table is still running. This book is still available from Kenzer & Co itself, as well as on the wider internet.

Notable Features
N/A



Dreadful Features
N/A


Who it’s best for (Player/GM/both) GMs mostly. See more below.


Comments, thoughts, and rating out of 10.
Important preface here: this book has no mechanics. (Well, unless you count the afterthought table at the back of the book which give you a short build stub for the NPCs mentioned in it, or the odd small sidebar for a specific magic item or two). In short, it is almost completely composed of fluff. As such my normal rating system can’t really work here because it presupposes a balance of both, so the end result of this review is going to be a N/A in any event.

The book is meant to function solely as a guidebook and information stocking for people playing and DMing in the setting. I strongly suspect, being a newcomer to D&D, that there’s a strong legacy reason why Kenzer thought they could publish a book with no mechanics; in any other third party producer it would take immense chutzpah and even in WOTC’s Power of Faerun sourcebook a couple of prestige classes were thrown in.

Kenzer’s rough assumptions for the setting, and therefore for this book, can be found on his website:

(1) KoK was fundamentally meant to be realistic. Kenzer claims things like languages, topography, trade routes, weather, political divisions and tensions all follow real-world patterns, the idea being that the longer you’re in the setting, the more it feels like a real world. One example: each human or humanoid subrace (the hobgoblins get their own stable kingdoms) has its own language with consistent names. (They each have their own alphabets, which is a nice touch.) Whether or not this holds true is probably more for long players of the setting.

(2) Magic’s meant to be uncommon. No magic item shops, for your stuff go looking for mage academies, ruins, temples. Wizards can be confused with clerics, and in some areas they’re very rare.

(3) PCs are meant to be the heroes of the story. Which is presumably code for “No level 20 character every 5 five like the Forgotten Realms”. Adventuring companies are rare, nobody will save the day if you fail. Low level PCs can have profound effects on the world.

(4) Variety of cultures with a unique flavour.

Does the book come up to scratch on that? Well … maybe. There are certainly lots of interesting little bits and pieces in it (there’s an anti-monarchist organisation, and slavery is open and a major part of the setting, both for and opposed) but it’s not exactly Eberron for flat-out originality or combining different flavours of fantasy as such. (That said – overt support for psionics!) Chronologies, cities, constellations, the de jure gods list and descriptions, a nice chapter on languages and alphabets. Also a quick reference table about each city, what country it’s in, its population, and the size of standing armies. And a full chapter on the code of law down to setting out individual crimes and punishments, which is lacking in most WOTC books. These elements more than the setting itself might be worth stealing for your own campaigns for the verisimilitude rather than anything else, but of itself the book isn't really a huge aid to the DM either in new ways of looking at the same stuff or being mindblowingly inspiring.

A big note here in favour of the presentation. Although most of the book is just the standard two-column WOTC format, with walls of text from beginning to end, the artwork is colour in most parts and is actually kind of nice to look at in most cases. It would’ve got a 2/2 here, I appreciate someone who gives my tired eyes a break.

The concepts seem reasonably well-thought-out, and the setting feels like a sort of eastern and southern Mediterranean type setting with Vikings tacked on. But I doubt I’d touch this without sampling the other KoK books first.


Total: N/A.


Next Time: Elements of Magic, E.N. Publishing

[Kalkra]

I'll mention that adventure modules tend to have little or no crunch. The KoK Campaign Setting probably could have included a short adventure or two in the back to at least give a DM something at the end of it.

[Saintheart]

I'll mention that adventure modules tend to have little or no crunch. The KoK Campaign Setting probably could have included a short adventure or two in the back to at least give a DM something at the end of it.

On reflection I suspect the Campaign Setting was intended to try to cover both the AD&D crowd playing from their old sourcebooks and the new third edition players, hence why the campaign setting has zero crunch. Other stuff like their Players' Guide on a glance at least looks a lot more conventional.

[Jervis]

How does Splintered Shapshifter work exactly? Is it race based or can you just pick one? I might need to check out Monster's Handbook is it's the latter because that sounds fun for a NPC or PC because that sounds fantastic for a Chameleon if you want to meme.

[Particle_Man]

I remember that setting book. One cool thing about it is that each political unit was basically beset with a problem that was just about to come to a boil, so plot hooks abounded for the PCs.

I also remember that some of the online discussions were different. With no crunch to debate, they got into things like the intricacies of trade routes, etc. There was one thread about trading otter pelts that was debated back and forth and studied with the attention to detail that a 1st ed AD&D thread might devote to deciphering initiative, or that a d20 thread might to, I dunno, grappling and mounted combat interactions. What, you think gamers wouldn't debate stuff online just because there was no crunch to debate about?

[Saintheart]

How does Splintered Shapshifter work exactly? Is it race based or can you just pick one? I might need to check out Monster's Handbook is it's the latter because that sounds fun for a NPC or PC because that sounds fantastic for a Chameleon if you want to meme.

It's a template that can be added to "any shapechanger". CR +2, no LA but it's not meant for PC use anyway. A splintered shapeshifter keeps track of class levels for one addiitonal form aside from its standard one. One class is chosen as the default, and the creature has to choose a single, specific creature it must turn into to get access to its second class. When it gets XP, you split them between all its classes to determine its level. Interestingly, it also divides XP spent between the two classes, so this could be handy for item creation types who just pick one form and use the other as a 50% discount on the XP cost of creating items.

[Jervis]

It's a template that can be added to "any shapechanger". CR +2, no LA but it's not meant for PC use anyway. A splintered shapeshifter keeps track of class levels for one addiitonal form aside from its standard one. One class is chosen as the default, and the creature has to choose a single, specific creature it must turn into to get access to its second class. When it gets XP, you split them between all its classes to determine its level. Interestingly, it also divides XP spent between the two classes, so this could be handy for item creation types who just pick one form and use the other as a 50% discount on the XP cost of creating items.

Huh, that’s kind of like 2E multiclassing in template form. I can see it on some weird character that uses a artificer skill monkey item maker on one side and a combat optimized initiator on the other.

[Alabenson]

I have a suggestion for a potential subject for review, how about the Iron Kingdoms Character Guide from Privateer Press?