Villain Design Handbook: Case Studies

[bekeleven]

The Kingdoms of Kalamar (KoK) setting was published by Kenzer & Co. However, due to a copyright infringement case, they ended up with the rights to slap the D&D logo and “Official Wizards of the Coast Licensed” on their products for a few years, so slap they did. They released 25+ sourcebooks and adventures with this logo. The weirdest one is, without question, the Villain Design Handbook.

Potential Sources of Problems
The issues with KoK books come from several directions:

1. Adherence to 2E design philosophy. This comes out in mainly subtle ways, like the preponderance of cursed items. But in 2E, fewer things were strict upside. A ton of different benefits all had tradeoffs or limitations, and you’ll see a lot of that in this book.
2. Misunderstanding of current rules. Often, it’s clear what something was intended to do, but the actual rules description of it does something different, potentially even contradictory.
3. Poor Editing. Often, it’s clear what an item was intended to do, but it just... doesn’t do that thing. Either they forgot to mention a necessary prerequisite, or simply didn’t give the mechanical effect that would make the name of the spell/item/ability make any sense.

All of these issues come to a head in the Villain Design Handbook, released in 2002 - Especially the first. Despite it not being the first rulebook they’d released, it has the most drawbacks and curses, presumably because that’s what makes feats, spells, classes, and items seem appropriately “Villainous.” But more on that later, of course.

In this TED talk I will take you on several deep dives into specific issues with Kingdoms of Kalamar’s Villain Design Handbook, showcasing a variety of good, bad, weird, and often fascinating decisions made by the five authors, four editors, and 17 “other contributors” listed in the VDH’s inside cover. Rather than a top ten list (or... a ten list), this will be relatively freeform. Thank you for joining me.

This book has many good ideas, especially in terms of fluff. But if a player asked me if they could use crunch from it, I would assume they were trying to get one over on me. I do recommend the book, after a fashion, as a springboard for homebrewing. Never import anything from it without a thorough vetting, for your sake, and the sake of your campaign world.

This is the most bizarre book I’ve read with the D&D logo on the front. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Trinkets
A homebrew project I’ve been concepting for the past few months is “Bek’s Book of Blissful Bewitchment.” It’s intended to be a compendium of non-combat wondrous items that would be owned by people that didn’t kill others for a living. Quality of life items, along the lines of the fortifying bedroll, Contact Medallion, or Everfull Mug. The obvious issue is that the default D&D economy is so warped that even skilled laborers in a prosperous city would struggle to own a RAW-priced heated blanket.

Trinkets, my first highlight from the Villain Design Handbook, is intended to solve this problem. The Craft Trinket item creation feat lets you make magical items on the cheap - market price of just spell level×50 GP (plus expensive components, and a totally redundant 1k cap) - with various restrictions, like maxing out at third-level spells and “not [being] overly useful to the PCs.” This is an excellent concept for a branch of magical items.

Like most things in KoK, the execution is much rockier. It’s not clear why you’d need a separate feat to make these, especially since existing craft feats divide items up more by form factor than use case (Making a 4 foot piece of wood that casts Shield takes a different feat from making a 1 foot long piece of wood that does so). The example items, including the most powerful item ever printed in any D&D book (the dreaded a̶̲̥̼̐̆m̶͓̗͊̀̈́͜u̷̡̘̕l̴̰̜̚͝ë̶͇̀̾t̵̰̗̱̾͠ ̶̩̌̉o̴̡̪̜̍͋͋f̴͇̳̦̾͘ ̷͉̀o̵̧̿͂̒t̵̘͛͑t̷͔̾e̶͙͇͐r̵͔̬̆͑̚ ̷̣̭̘͂c̴̖͍͛o̶͎͐ň̵͔̤͔t̴̨̿r̸͍͒̒o̷̖̥̯͗̐l̵̲͓͐), don’t all clearly follow the given pricing structure, and many of them seem entirely useless: Why pay 100 GP for an item that sheds 15 feet of green light when an Continual Flame is right there? Do you really want to pay 250 GP for a ring that gives +1 to saves against a single nonmagical disease? According to Craft Trinket it should cost 150, but specific beats general, I suppose...

Given the system mastery on display in the book, it’s not clear to me that the writers identified the same problem as me, much less targeted this feat specifically to fix it - the feat’s explicit use case is “here’s how your villain can give henchmen baubles that won’t make the PCs more powerful.” But nonetheless, the feat does sort of solve the problem, and in an interesting way I likely wouldn’t have thought of. Oh, man, this was supposed to be a complimentary item. I wanted to lead with something positive, and it’s all gone off the rails.

As you’ll see more in future points, even the good ideas in the VDH don’t come with useable crunch.

Wicked Things
As previously stated, the 2E mindset led this book to include a lot of drawbacks, and nowhere is that more hammered in than the chapter on magical items. These are items for villains, and they don’t want you to forget that.

Oh, before I continue, I should mention that this book has the second most broken item (after t̶̡̢̧̬̬̗̮͇̯̲̀̎̅͒̌̂̐̕h̶̘̀̄̋̈́́̃̂̽̊̕̕e̷̱͊ ̵̻̭̔͊̑̈́̒͂̈͑̽͜a̸̖̠̠̬͕̣͔̰̠͛̑́̄̏m̸̞̣͕̬̙͆̃̓ǘ̸̯͐̓̇͂̽͋̍ l̶̮͇̩̪̹̭̓̈́̑̓͘͘̚ȩ̶̡͙́̒͗̈̂̌́̊̑͝͝ẗ̴͓̠́) in this chapter. It’s called the Greater Efreeti Bottle, and it grants literally thousands of SLA wishes for under 60 GP/Wish. It’s obviously not intended to do that, but it’s not entirely clear to me what it is intended to do... I think it’s supposed to be similar to a standard efreeti bottle, except that it’s never insane and you can choose to redeem the wishes any time. But RAW, you can redeem the 3 wishes every day, for 1001 straight days. This is once again a casualty of just leaving out necessary text, which in this case would say the item lasts 1001 days or until you use the wishes.

Anyway, onto the eponymous wicked things. Even the items that aren’t curse-cursed tend to either be “soft-cursed” or have drawbacks. For examples of all three, the three rings presented include one explicitly cursed ring (Ring of Protection -1) as well as an item that gives an untyped bonus to bluff but forces a DC20 Will Save to not lie every time you speak, and finally, an item that makes you heal from fire, but no longer heal from healing spells and take double damage from cold.

The Rods are harsher. The first one is one of the book’s few examples of a potentially good curse: It grants undead creation and control, but the person it’s bound to has a lich’s fear aura and it can’t change owners without a Remove Curse. Hey, sometimes that could even be upside! The other rods are real doozies, though. The Sceptre of Domination grants Leadership with a +5 bonus, but moves your alignment one step towards Chaotic Evil every 1D4 days and, once you’re CE, makes you paranoid and start murdering your underlings in order of importance. No save, of course. The next item is a Staff of Pyromania that spends charges to cast fire spells, but every time you cast one you make a will save equal to 10 + the staff’s used charges—yes, all of them, by the time the staff is used up this has a DC of 60—or you set fire to something with your next action. And if you use the staff to do that, you need to save again... There’s an exit clause or two but it’s not worth getting into.

The odd thing about this chapter is that Trinkets were explicitly introduced earlier in the book as a way of giving NPCs items that the PCs couldn’t use, but nearly every item in here would wreck a character and/or party that got ahold of it. Maybe this is why I creatively misinterpret the Trinket rules.

To further the resemblance to Trinkets, one of the items in this chapter is literally just Labyrinth except that if you miss a dex check it stabs your hand or releases a rot grub or something. Personally, I think complex board games are a great example of trinkets, and then this goes and throws on “also it can cast stinking cloud, but trust me, not when you want it to” and prices it at 10,000 GP. If your marble falls down hole #4, you lose both hands, no save, no stated cure. Who is this for and why was it made? Ingame or out?

There’s one item that I recommend for powergamers that doesn’t give 3003 wishes. It’s called the Armband of the Orcs and it lets you permanently increase your strength and possibly dexterity through some unique rules I won’t get into, but check it out if your DM says they’re running “high power without wish loops.” There’s also the potions that cost half-price but deal strength damage unless you cast Neutralize Poison after every other drink.

Anti-Feats
While earlier editions had character options that removed abilities (like using Skills and Powers to strip character abilities) I think the Anti-Feats variant presented in the Villain Design Handbook are the clearest ancestor to Unearthed Arcana’s flaws system. There’s an anti-feat for every feat, you can take one per level, and you get a bonus feat for every two anti-feats. Oh, and there’s a catch: All anti-feats must be selected randomly, by rolling a D1000 on an 8-page table listing feat from the PHB, FRCS, KoKPG, VDH, OA, Masters of the Wild, Tome and Blood, Song and Silence, Sword and Fist, Psionics Handbook, and even some issues of Dragon Magazine from 2001 and 2002.

Now, this being the VDH, the rules make very little sense for very little reason. For a few examples of issues, if you roll a feat you already have, they cancel out; you lose the feat, and don’t gain an anti-feat, meaning you don’t get 1/2 of a new bonus feat. Similarly, you can forgo a standard character feat to erase an undesired anti-feat. These are both rather resource-negative. Also, although I initially read this the other way, you do not need a feat’s prerequisites to gain its anti-feat. Which means that noncasters can safely roll inverted item creation feats and metamagic feats and familiar-modifying feats for literal 0 downside.

The anti-feats themselves range from mechanical inversion (Toughness granting -3 HP, extend spell halving the duration of all your non-concentration spells, skill feats giving -2/-2), to related penalties (almost every item creation anti-feat just gives you +25% XP, GP, and creation time to all item creation), to the mechanically bizarre or meaningless (Scent granting Anosmia, or ability focus making one of your attacks “less potent than normal” with no elaboration - the editors strike again!). Perhaps the most bizarre anti-feat is Anti-Extra Turning, which has the effect of: “You are unable to take Extra Turning, as described in the cleric and paladin sections of the Player’s Handbook.” It should be clear by now that this makes no sense on multiple levels.

I think Anti-Feats are fun, but if I were to use them in a game, I’d do the following:

1. Limit options to feats my players meet the prerequisites for. You can’t gain anti-Greater Power Penetration if you have no manifestor level. Pretty simple.
2. Grant more of a choosing mechanism, because randomly rolling a bad character is no fun. Either pure selection, or rerolls, or weighted rolls of some sort. For instance, players could determine 20 anti-feats they qualify for and roll among those.
3. Change the “cancel-out” mechanic, especially if players can’t avoid rolling dupes.

Spell Headers
It would be possible, nay, trivial to write 20,000 words on everything that’s going on just in the spells chapter of this book. And don’t worry, there will be multiple entries on various specific aspects of it. For now, I’d like to limit my discussion to a single thing: The information presented in just the headers of each spell. You know, the level, components, casting time, range, duration, etc. In fact, let’s limit it further. I’ll write purely about duration.

The majority of all durational (non-instantaneous, non-concentration) spells in D&D first-party sourcebooks, for ease of tracking, fall into a few standard durations. 99% of them are: 1 Round, 1D4 rounds, 1 Round/Level... then repeat that with minutes, hours, and occasionally days. A few spells last weeks or 1 year, and there are a handful of other exceptions. Rope Trick lasts 2 hours per level so that a party can sleep in it starting at Caster Level 4. It would be silly if a 2nd level spell couldn’t perform its obvious primary function until 5 levels after the player learned it.

The Villain Design Handbook throws this all out the window, deciding instead to ad-hoc every spell’s duration based on what the writers think is balanced. For instance, the first spell in the book is instantaneous. The second lasts 2 hours per level. The third lasts 10 minutes. The fourth lasts 2 rounds per level. Other spell durations in the book include “10 minutes + 1 round per level,” “1 round + 1 round per level,” “3 hours + 1 hour per level,” “2 days per level,” and “3 hours per level.” The duration entries “Until the recipient eats food,” “Permanent,” “Permanent until desired spells are restudied” (don’t ask), “Special (D),” “Discharge,” and of course “Permanent until discharged” are all used to mean “permanent until discharged.” The spell Flashback lets you retry anything you screwed up and has the duration entry of “Duration of attempted action.” Some spells last days, others last 24 hours per level. Some last one round per level, others last 1 round/level. Some spells cure wounds with a duration of permanent. Another spell is basically Benign Transposition (swap places with an ally “for whom an unnatural death is imminent”) and also has a duration of permanent. What happens if one of you walks into an antimagic field after? Some of these issues indicate unfamiliarity with the game rules; others indicate unfamiliarity with the game’s design goals. Still others would probably have been caught by another round of edits.

Some spells use turns instead of rounds, seemingly randomly. One such spell is “Meditate,” which lasts “2 turns per level.” It takes a cleric, druid, or shaman “2 full rounds” to cast and has the following text: “The recipient of this spell must sit in a relaxed position and remain completely still. Doing so under the effects of this spell while wounded will allow him or her to regain 1 hit point per 10 minutes of meditation.” Let me do the math for you. If you manage to jump through all of the hoops presented to you, this two-full-round-casting 2nd level spell allows you to heal 1 hit point per fifty caster levels.

These odd durations can make spells stronger as well as weaker. For instance, first level sorcerers and wizards can learn “Forget Spell,” which makes a target within medium range forget a random prepared spell if they fail a will save. Duration: Permanent. My reading is that you can have a sorcerer cohort strip you of your entire spell assortment one day, then wake up the next day, prepare new spells, and let said cohort hit you with a Dispel and you have double your daily allotment. DMs, rule otherwise.

Other spells weave multiple durations in notably inelegant ways. For instance, the spell “Reign of Chaos” creates a 20 foot aura around the caster for 1 minute/level that changes people’s alignments to chaotic for 1D4 hours. The target of the spell “Soul Drain” suffers a negative level and can be turned for 1 hour. They can also make a saving throw to end the effect “once per week,” despite negative levels lasting 1 day and the undead whatchamajigit lasting an hour. Soul Drain’s listed duration? Instantaneous. A charitable reading lets them regain the lost level, but I don’t have faith that the spell’s writers had that in mind.

While I’m on the subject of time, I’ll make a small note of a spell’s cast time. The spell “Sidestep” “allows the recipient to automatically avoid an impending physical attack by magically shifting his body two feet to the right or left of its previous position.” Duration: Instantaneous. Casting time: 1 action. I know immediate actions didn’t exist in 3.0, but feather fall did!

Fun Spells
This being the Villain Design Handbook, I’ll say before the jump that most of these have questionable mechanical effects. However, a lot of the spells in this book are conceptually fun, interesting, and/or unique.

Before a million splatbooks introduced dimension door variants, the spells chapter in this book opened with the spell “Appear Behind,” which lets you or a touched willing creature transport directly behind anyone within 25 feet. Like Sidestep, this spell forgot facing didn’t exist. It also doesn’t automatically make the person you teleport behind flat-footed or anything. So close, yet so far.

The previously mentioned Flashback is mechanically interesting. It lets you retry something you just failed, with examples being an attack that missed, guessing another answer to a question, and attempting to pick a lock. I.... I think this spell is intended to be time travel? I can’t tell. It’s very odd. It also limits itself to a 10ft×10ft area. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m always interested in time travel.

“Good Luck,” a 2nd level Bard/Basarian Dancer spell, grants a player advantage to 1 roll of their choice within rounds/level. It also—and the text here is super unclear, but if I’m parsing it correctly—can be cast inverted, giving a touched target disadvantage to a single roll that you get to choose within the duration. Look, using a standard action touch attack to grant a penalty to a single roll is rarely going to come up, but I thought I’d mention it as almost the precursor to truespeech and its idea of pairing positives and negatives. Also somewhat similar to anti-feats. Soul Drain (mentioned above) also has an inversion mechanic... due to the text “if the target saves, the caster gets afflicted instead.”

Many moons ago, me and a friend were trying to build a character from Fate/Stay Night, and got stuck on his ability to pull people into his pocket dimension to 1v1 them. We eventually decided on the DSP power Dueling Ground, which is... close. Little did we know that there’s been a first-level “Officially licensed” D&D spell since 2002 that could do the same thing with no save! It’s called “One on One” and it “bars additional participants” from intervening in a fight between “two opponents already engaged in combat.” Does this make rigorous RAW sense? No! Does it do something I’ve been looking for in D&D for literally over a decade? Sort of!

“Randomize” is a second level spell Sor/Wiz/Spl (Spellsinger) that reads “when the target of this spell tries to cast a spell, another randomly determined spell from his or her repertoire will be cast instead.” Again... might be hard to implement. But I need it. Oh do I need it.

“Remember” is a 4th level Druid/Shaman spell that grants a target eidetic memory of their entire life for a day. Then, because it’s a Kingdoms of Kalamar spell, it also re-prepares any one spell they cast in the last day. Look at your fourth level spell slots. Now back to me. Now back at your spell slots. Now back to me. Your fourth level spells are now shapechange. I’m a horse. Oh, and it’s a touch spell, so all of your cohort’s 4th level spells are also shapechange. As somebody who has specifically sought out memory recall skills, feats, and spells, this is relevant to my interests even without the game breaking. At least it’s got a 10 minute cast time.

Spell Spy lets you examine a creature within close range each round for one round per level. You learn, with no save, every spell they have prepared, as well as what kind of caster they are (which could matter if they’re a spontaneous caster, or just out of spell slots). The downside is that it takes a full-round action to examine anybody. I’m always on the lookout for spells that give me this type of information, and this is only a couple of tweaks from useable.

Time Delay is a first-level spell that targets another simultaneously cast spell, meaning that it requires two spellcasters acting in concert. It lets you delay the targeted spell for 10 minutes. Nifty utility if you’re not the party’s only caster - collapse the building once you leave, prepare a distraction for a raid, or whatever else you can think of. It’s “Will negates” rather than willing only, so you could use it as a poor man’s counterspell, but I wouldn’t recommend relying on it.

The Editors Did Not Play D&D
I hope it’s clear by now that at least one editor of this book did not play D&D, but in case it’s not, I will now present irrefutable proof:

The class features of every prestige class are listed in alphabetical order.

Your honor, the prosecution rests.

Mindhunter
I’m mechanically-focused when I read splatbooks. I generally crack them open looking for character options, and assume that I know my way around character writing and story structure and all that at least as well as these 5 people did in 2002.

However, to their credit, I should note that this book’s chapter on villain psychology has a pretty good rundown, similar to ones I’ve read before in writing books. Listing out possible motivations, emotional hooks, and reminders that nobody sees themselves as the villain is all useful advice to aspiring DMs.

There’s also a table for villain wealth by level that basically breaks down to “villains should have 50% more resources than a PC of their level,” but the chapter is light on crunch overall.

The Darklight Wizard
Speaking of prestige classes, I figure I should cover possibly the most infamous Kingdoms of Kalamar 3E material ever printed, the Darklight Wizard. This class is a mess on every level, and I’m afraid I won’t even get to all of them. In just two pages, including an illustration and some tables, this prestige class is almost fractally bad, spawning new issues the closer you look at any one part. Here’s my attempt to communicate the problem—or at least, the scope of the problem:

We’ll start with the prerequisites. Makes sense, right? Race requirement, knowledge requirement, and you need to be evil. You only need 5 ranks, meaning you can technically qualify by level 2, but keep reading. There’s a “Special” requirement and it’s a doozy.

To enter this class, you need to read the study guide 10 hours a day for a month, then make a DC20 Int check. Once you’ve made 3 of these checks in a row, you make a DC30 Will save. Failing any check in this process resets everything. If you get a run where you succeed in 3 Int checks followed by the will save, however, you lose all levels and become a Level 1 Darklight wizard with no other classes... But you keep your abilities (including ability score increases), skill points, and feats. Do these replace your ASIs, skill points, and feats you get on level up? No. Enter this after 20 levels of fighter, rogue, and factotum. Good lord months have passed and we haven’t even gotten to the class itself yet.

Now let’s read the table. As a wizard, you have a full base attack bonus and your only good save is fortitude —pretty standard arcane caster so far. You also get an ability at every level! They’re not all in the text, though. Some are pretty obvious once you suss out what’s going on, like the table lists Globe of Night and the text has an ability called Area of Night. And Area of Night appears between Death Touch and Mixed Blessing, so it’s obviously intended to start with G, keep up. The text includes the class feature Protection from Good, but it’s not any of the 10 class features on the table and the text doesn’t specify when it’s gained.

Let’s see, what other class features do we have? Starting at level 5, you can cast Animate Dead at will as a SLA, “though the caster may animate and control any number of undead whose total Hit Dice do not exceed his level +1d6.” I have concerns about this text, including but not limited to not knowing how many undead I can control, being unclear when and how often I roll that die, and the fact that level+1D6 is lower than the default undead control limit. I’m not sure if this applies to this class feature, or all undead control: There are two other undead-controlling class features in the 10 levels.

My favorite tiny note from the class is that, at 4th level, you get the ability to deal 1D4/level with a melee touch, and anybody that hits 0HP dies instantly. Then at 7th level, you gain the ability to, with a melee touch... give somebody -4 to their next attack roll. It’s the Ur-Power Word Distract.

Your 6th level ability, “Aura of despair,” gives a -2 morale penalty on saves to all non-necromancers. That’s it; that’s the entire text. If “Necromancer” refers to a necromancy-specced wizard, guess what? You’re not one, so that applies to you. And don’t think your enemies can outrun this. There’s no range. Now is a good time to point out that morale bonuses don’t stack. Are there at least a couple dozen darklight wizards? Cool. All creatures in the universe that are not necromancy-specced wizards will fail every saving throw 95% of the time.

Ok, we’ve gotten through the class features ⁠— the highlights, at least — but you’re a wizard and we haven’t even touched spells! So, beside your class features (Table 7-5: The Darklight Wizard), we have a second table (Table 7-6: Darklight Wizard Spells Known). 7-6 has a subtitle reading, “Spells Per Day.” It then shows a progression of 9 levels of spells across 10 levels, not dissimilar to Ur-Priest, with no cantrips and (by the end) 4 spells of each level 1-6, then 3, 2, and 2 for 7-9.

So, uh, what.

There’s no text explaining the spellcasting here, except for the text under the class feature Weapon and Armor Proficiency, reproduced here in full: “A Darklight wizard casts arcane spells, and is limited to a certain number of spells of each spell level per day, according to his class level. A Darklight wizard prepares spells from his spellbook as a wizard.” Yes, that is the text under Weapon and Armor Proficiency, and no there is no other text. We can extrapolate from the class’s intelligence focus and being named “wizard” that Int is likely your casting stat, and based on the fact that it brings up ASF under Weapon and Armor Proficiency, you probably suffer Arcane Spell Failure - although you’re proficient in no weapons or armors so the impact of this is ameliorated.

The only spell table is “Spells Known,” despite the fact that the darklight wizard has a spellbook (with no stated way of adding spells to it). And then there’s the spell list itself. It’s basically somebody going “here’s all the cool wizard necromancy spells!” followed by “Oh, there aren’t a lot of cool necromancy spells, especially after we turned Animate Dead, Create Undead, Control Undead, and Darkness into 4 of our class’s 10 class features.” The result? Total spells on the spell list by level: 4/4/4/4/3/2/2/1/0. Let me remind you that the table for spells known has, at its tenth level, 4/4/4/4/4/4/3/2/2 spells known. You literally can’t fill your spells known. You have 0 ninth level spells on your spell list.

Darklight Wizard isn’t your average, run-of-the mill Bad Splatbook Content™. Darklight Wizard is an indication of a deeply flawed editorial process; there must have been mistakes at multiple levels before this class saw print. And let me be clear that the Darklight Wizard has some cool stuff going on. I like the Darkness SLAs. I like the idea of a prestige class messing with your XP in some way; that’s untapped design space, and there could be something good there with the right implementation. I like the fluff, for all that it’s mostly generic. But it’s so painfully obviously a first draft - with no spells per day, only 24 spells on its 9-level spell list, no “spells” entry, class features it never gains, typos everywhere, necessary text nowhere, and somehow printed on the pages of a book that retailed for 24.99 US dollars in 2002. The question you ask about Darklight Wizard is not, cannot be “who wrote this?” It’s “How did this happen?” Because whoever wrote this put in a really solid 30-40 minutes of work. The class could’ve been great if they’d had another hour, maybe two, to finish up their first draft.

Impractical Jokers
A second entry on spells, because I have so much to say about these spells. I promise I won’t write the full 20,000 words. Let me instead focus on another vertical slice: Spells that make good pranks.

I’ve already mentioned Randomize, Good Luck’s bad luck mode (make your friend trip), and Time Delay (Surprise! The building’s on fire), all of which have lots of pranking potential. But the thing about making a chapter of spells that are useful to ne’er-do-wells is that they can be useful even at relatively low stakes of villainy. Many of the spells in this book have an inherent comedic potential to them, even if (as always) their crunch may leave something to be desired.

The most iconic example has to be “Bat Accident.” This 2nd level Sor/Wiz/Spl spell lets you literally coat a 5-foot radius circle in bat guano from the sky, or a single person if you’re feeling particularly vindictive. Mechanically, this is a reflex save-or-suck that nauseates you for 1 round/level and deals 1D6 damage. Personally, I hate that. The damage is on a level where it’ll almost never matter in actual combat, but might occasionally kill a commoner: The worst of both worlds. Remove that from the spell and use it on all your friends.

“Arm” is a first level spell available to sorcerers, wizards, spellsingers, druids, and shamans. It lasts 2 hours per level and offers no saving throw. It makes the touched creature grow an arm “out of the side of the recipient’s torso.” This arm “may be used to grip objects, wield weapons or perform any other task the person is normally capable of.” After you get over the true artistry of that name, the obvious next comment is, “what happens to clothing?” and frankly, that’s why it’s such a good prank. Imagine your buddy’s on the way out the door for his hot date and, bam, third arm protruding from the right side of his stomach. Bet that dress shirt doesn’t fit now! And once he hurriedly cuts a hole in it, cast it again, the arm’s now on his left side (I’ll charitably assume this spell doesn’t stack with itself). No save and can’t be dismissed, either. In combat, I’d argue I should be able to cast this on the full-plated knight menacing me and the extra volume in his torso would shove his neckline into his chin or something. “Porcupine Coat,” a proto-Body Blades spell later in the chapter, notes that if the target wears armor, “the quills grown only in unprotected locations on his arms, torso, or legs” so this crossed the mind of at least one writer. (No word on the porcupine coat damaging your wizard’s robes.)

Arm is not the only source of limbs in this chapter. This book also contains “Tail,” which despite being a much worse pun, is a pretty similar spell mechanically. The tal can hold stuff and grants an untyped +1 to dexterity, as well as +4 to some athletics skills. All of these benefits are contingent on the tail hanging freely “without being covered by armor or restrictive clothes.” Why do they remember this everywhere except on “arm?” We also have multiple “my limb acts as another thing,” like “Constricting Serpent Arm” (Exactly what it sounds like: I coil my arm around you and constrict with it) and “venomous serpent arm,” a spell where you literally... make a shadow-puppet mouth with your hand, and pinch someone, and they drop dead instantly. We’re talking Caster Level DRAIN to all three physical stats, fort half. Again, I’m not evaluating these on balance.

If you want a practical joke that extends into the level of actual crime, the spell “Fertility” is a save-or-get-pregnant (or cause pregnancy) next time you have sex. DMs, just say no, so your PCs can say yes. No word on if your sexytimes aren’t biologically capable of pregnancy, but maybe if we change this spell to willing-only it could be a non-creepy tool for same-sex and cross-species conception.

One spell that I can’t quite wrap my head around is “Surprise.” It’s a 2nd level spell that requires a melee touch, then a reflex save, with the effect of: The next person that encounters the target, who is not currently present, will be surprised. “Someone under the effects of this spell could shout that he is about to enter a room that those who are inside the room would still be surprised when he or she did.” Ignoring the obvious rules issues, of which there are many, my main questions are 1) why touch attack into reflex save, and 2) does this book think this spell is a buff or a debuff? Because it sure feels like a buff to me but.. Again, touch attack into save, and no (harmless) either.

Along the same lines as Randomize, we also have “Shuffle,” a 2nd level Sor/Wiz/Spl spell that replaces all of a character’s prepared spells with randomly-selected known spells if they fail a will save. Now, sadly this does nothing on the majority of characters: Only arcane casters have spells known, and only some of those casters actually prepare them. But I do like the idea of a wizard writing cheap spells and utility scrolls into their spellbook whenever they come up, and then suddenly their 3rd level spells are Undead Torch, Blunt Natural Weapon, and Antidragon Aura. Through freak probability, their three 4th level spells all become Disguise Ship.

“Swap” is a 4th level Bard/Basarian Dancer spell that swaps an item you’re holding for an item of similar size and weight somebody within close range is holding (reflex negates... again... I want to know what these guys were doing with reflex saves). I trust the comedic implications of this spell are well-grapsed. In a similar vein, we have “Teleport Item,” where any item you touch moves to a random location anywhere within 300 feet. This being Kingdoms of Kalamar’s Villain Design Handbook, we get the line “the volume affected varies by the level of the caster” with no further explanation, and of course both of these spells have a duration of “Permanent.”

The unarguably best practical joke in the book, unfortunately, is a self-only spell. With a duration of permanent, the 8th level spell “Minstrel” permanently creates a first-level expert of your own race and sex, who follows you around as your hypeman. Forever. “He begins his service with no other desire but to serve his master through song, poem and prose. However, he must thereafter be treated with respect, care, and friendship in order to maintain his disposition and service...” You want a good villainous backstory? How about a guy who summoned a minstrel, later married that minstrel, then his husband got caught in an adventurer’s area dispel ten years later in an incidental scuffle in the town square? Just don’t make the villain a bard, because like I said, this is an 8th level spell, and that’s a lot easier for a wizard to cast than a bard. (Yes, it has “Brd 8” in its level listing.)

How easy would it be to trick somebody into reading a Minstrel scroll? Asking for an otter.

[ShurikVch]

You're apparently, used the original version of Villain Design Handbook
But do you know it have 3.5 update?
It fixed some issues - Darklight Wizard got the "Spells:" section, 9th-level spells (Energy Drain and Soul Bind) and Symbol of Death at 8th level - but not all (CF are still in alphabetical order, and exact level of "Protection from Good" is still unknown)
Also, you contradicted yourself a bit in the description of this PrC: you said "no spells per day", but earlier mentioned Table 7-6, which is exactly the "Spells per Day"

[Beni-Kujaku]

Devil's advocate : a "turn" was 100 rounds in 1st edition‚ or 10 minutes. So Meditate isn't completely useless (it's still only 2HP per level if you sleep for hours‚ and uses 1st edition wording‚ but it should sorta work). Also‚ facing did exist in 3.0 didn't it? That's one of the things they changed in 3.5.
The anti-feats rules and especially darklight wizard are still unforgivable‚ though.

[bekeleven]

You're apparently, used the original version of Villain Design Handbook
But do you know it have 3.5 update?

I searched for errata and a 3.5 update packet before I made the post, but I didn't realized they'd skipped those and just rereleased the book in 2004.

Also, you contradicted yourself a bit in the description of this PrC: you said "no spells per day", but earlier mentioned Table 7-6, which is exactly the "Spells per Day"

It's not, though. I mean, it could be interpreted as saying that the darklight wizard's spells known and spells per day are identical, but ask yourself: If you wanted to convey that information on a table, what would that table look like? Would it look like this:

Spoiler: 7-6: Darklight Wizard Spells Known

Show

Perhaps a more pertinent question: What information would you want to convey, that would result in this table?

Devil's advocate : a "turn" was 100 rounds in 1st edition‚ or 10 minutes. So Meditate isn't completely useless (it's still only 2HP per level if you sleep for hours‚ and uses 1st edition wording‚ but it should sorta work). Also‚ facing did exist in 3.0 didn't it? That's one of the things they changed in 3.5.

I recalled earlier editions counting time differently in and out of combat, thanks for pointing out the terminology. So the Meditate spell is yet another relic of not updating things to 3.0.

Speaking of 3.0, this is from the 3.0 SRD:

Face
How much area a character occupies in combat. Face is essentially the border between the square or rectangular space that a character occupies and the space next to it. These faces are abstract, not "front, back, left, and right," because characters are constantly moving and turning in battle. Unless a character is immobile, it practically doesn't have a front or a left side—at least not one that can be identified on the tabletop.

The rules also accounted for "Long" creatures that had uneven facings (horses were 10x5) but, funny enough, I couldn't find text that exempted them from this (maybe I missed it?) meaning that their backs and fronts were identical too.

[ShurikVch]

It's not, though. I mean, it could be interpreted as saying that the darklight wizard's spells known and spells per day are identical, but ask yourself: If you wanted to convey that information on a table, what would that table look like? Would it look like this:

Spoiler: 7-6: Darklight Wizard Spells Known

Show

Perhaps a more pertinent question: What information would you want to convey, that would result in this table?

It's the unique quirk of 3.0 version Villain Design Handbook:

Spoiler: 3.5 version

Show

says "Darklight Wizard Spells" - not "Spells Known"

The original version of Darklight Wizard - from the Deathright:

Spoiler: Was much more well-edited:

Show

"Spells Known"? - don't mentioned
"Protection from Good"? - is explicitly at 1st level
Lack of 9th-level spells? - no need for them: 9th-level slots are absent too (progression stops at 8th spell level)
And it even have the Area of Night spell printed - which both versions of Villain Design Handbook lacking
Unfortunately, it still have some problems:
The "Spells" section is even more absent than even in Villain Design Handbook 3.0
Still "+1d6" on Animate Dead HD pool
Class features are still in alphabetic order
And the spell list is even shorter: if 24 spells is too few, then what we should say about 18?

[bekeleven]

The original version of Darklight Wizard - from the Deathright

Holy hell. This wasn't a first draft? This was somebody's edit of the darklight wizard? This was the version with the polish?

I think I need to lie down.

[Fizban]

There’s also the potions that cost half-price but deal strength damage unless you cast Neutralize Poison after every other drink.

Reminder that Neutralize Poison is actually immunity to (via the instant neutralization of) all poisons through the duration, so you shouldn't need to cast it again.

The Villain Design Handbook throws this all out the window, deciding instead to ad-hoc every spell’s duration based on what the writers think is balanced.

Which would actually be better than keeping to formulas that result in visually dishonest durations that change by orders of magnitude depending on the spell level. But those aren't the first times some of those quoted durations have appeared- there are plenty of spells with X rounds +1/level, Gaseous Form is just arbitrarily 2 min/level, etc. There's some wackiness there and obviously terrible editing, but if you design something that should have a unique duration there's nothing wrong with that.

The Editors Did Not Play D&D
I hope it’s clear by now that at least one editor of this book did not play D&D, but in case it’s not, I will now present irrefutable proof:

The class features of every prestige class are listed in alphabetical order.

Your honor, the prosecution rests.

I've been looking over some old homebrew by someone who definitely played DnD, and while their main level features aren't alphabetical, the menus that should be by menu grade are. It took till 3.5 before the 1st party books changed to X, Greater so that at least some feats were properly clustered, though even then the choice of suffix will still often put them out of order (I've made an attempt to select words for my own which keep things naturally in power order, it's definitely a constraint).

And Area of Night appears between Death Touch and Mixed Blessing, so it’s obviously intended to start with G, keep up.

Now that's some editing comedy gold.

Your 6th level ability, “Aura of despair,” gives a -2 morale penalty on saves to all non-necromancers. That’s it; that’s the entire text. If “Necromancer” refers to a necromancy-specced wizard, guess what? You’re not one, so that applies to you. And don’t think your enemies can outrun this. There’s no range. Now is a good time to point out that morale bonuses don’t stack. Are there at least a couple dozen darklight wizards? Cool. All creatures in the universe that are not necromancy-specced wizards will fail every saving throw 95% of the time.

It's pretty obvious that a penalty is just a negative bonus and that penalties thus will not stack any more than bonuses would. By your reading there all penalties always stack, because none of the bonus/penalty types on the linked page explicitly say that penalties don't stack.

The question you ask about Darklight Wizard is not, cannot be “who wrote this?” It’s “How did this happen?” Because whoever wrote this put in a really solid 30-40 minutes of work. The class could’ve been great if they’d had another hour, maybe two, to finish up their first draft.

I think you've nailed it there, because no person manages to write a first draft missing that much information (assuming you've related it correctly). That's not a first draft, that's napkin notes like I write when I have ideas at work.

The most iconic example has to be “Bat Accident.” This 2nd level Sor/Wiz/Spl spell lets you literally coat a 5-foot radius circle in bat guano from the sky, or a single person if you’re feeling particularly vindictive. Mechanically, this is a reflex save-or-suck that nauseates you for 1 round/level and deals 1D6 damage. Personally, I hate that. The damage is on a level where it’ll almost never matter in actual combat, but might occasionally kill a commoner: The worst of both worlds. Remove that from the spell and use it on all your friends.

Reminder that with 1d4+con hp, that's less "might occasionally," and more "on average kill greater than 50%." As for "pranking" spells in general, eh, I find the concept usually juevenille. I recognize that people with phenomenal cosmic power would absolutely do it, because they're still people, but I have no interest in honoring it with deliberately written spells to put on the lists of things for players to choose from when making their dungeoneering combatants. Spells that have less specialized uses and could be used for "pranks" might be around, but if you're actually pulling that on people at the table you'll annoy *me* if nothing else, and NPCs definitely won't be amused.

Through freak probability, their three 4th level spells all become Disguise Ship.

Heh. An effective save-or-lose that turns all of a person's spells known and prepared to Disguise Ship, seems comparable to Feeblemind.

Spells that let you mess with spells known/prepared are a cool idea, but quickly break into OP territory for obvious reasons by letting spells remove the limits on spells. Still, a spell that puts the target into some sort of "utility" mode, which can then be used on unwilling foes with a save as a weird attack, would be cool. The trick is making it useful without being overpowered- figuring out what it actually does, while actually tying it into use of their existing spells in some way. Though I suppose you could just Tenser's Transformation clause and bar them from casting/other actions outright.

[Murg]

Wow, this was hilariously bad game design. I was trying to have lunch as I read this; I had to put my drink aside because I kept on spontaneously laughing (and then choking on my drink) at the sheer absurdity of it all!

[bekeleven]

Reminder that Neutralize Poison is actually immunity to (via the instant neutralization of) all poisons through the duration, so you shouldn't need to cast it again.

It's a bit more complex than that. "Wiuxiu's Potions of Delayed Discomfort" are half price, but drinking three causes you to take 2D4 str/2D4 str (Fort 16). The sneaky part is, "The initial damage takes effect immediately after the victim takes the third drink, no matter the interval between the first and third drink. The poison builds up in victim's system and lingers for years." So, yes, you can drink as many potions as you want while neutralized, but can then pop only two potions between castings.

It's pretty obvious that a penalty is just a negative bonus and that penalties thus will not stack any more than bonuses would. By your reading there all penalties always stack, because none of the bonus/penalty types on the linked page explicitly say that penalties don't stack.

penalties are often untyped, and the typed ones are uncommon enough that they usually don't stack because they're from the same source. You could argue that the class feature is a single source, but I'd read it as each darklight wizard being unique.

Heh. An effective save-or-lose that turns all of a person's spells known and prepared to Disguise Ship, seems comparable to Feeblemind.

Technically it doesn't specify that they're replaced by spells of the same level, so you could end up with disguise ship in all your 4th-9th slots. Could it, in theory, add metamagics to spells? Do you have to account for those separately? Trying to resolve this spell on a high-level wizard with a blessed book or two could take literal hours.

...Huh. I went back to check the wording, and it turns out I actually misread Shuffle when I made the original post.

When this spell is cast on an opponent, all of his or her available spells for that particular day are replaced by other spells in his or her repertoire at random. The subject will know what the new spells are but might or might not have the appropriate materials to cast them. For example, a magic user proudly touting a fireball spell could have this spell replaced in his or her memory by a water breathing spell if he or she was the victim of the shuffle spell and water breathing was in his or her spellbook. The subject may try to make a will saving throw to negate the effect.

It says "in their repertoire." It doesn't say "spells known." This works on divine casters. Do you have any idea how many useless spells clerics and druids have access to? We're talking your first level spells becoming Deep Breath, Extend Shifting, Suspend Disease, Crunchy Snow, and Slow Burn; your second level slots becoming Avoid Planar Effects, Ignite Dragonmark, Soften Earth and Stone, and Hydrate; and your third level spells becoming Node Door, Resist Taint, and Dominate Vermin. This is the best thing.

[redking]

You've done yeoman's work on dissecting this rubbish, but you have forgotten Spell Haste. The second spell you cast in a round is cast as a move action. level 2.

[bekeleven]

You've done yeoman's work on dissecting this rubbish, but you have forgotten Spell Haste. The second spell you cast in a round is cast as a move action. level 2.

Trust me, I did not forget. I simply realized that evaluating the book on balance was a sucker's game and it didn't fall into my other categories.

[Endarire]

Villain Design Handbook: bekeleven, you've found the D&D 3.x equivalent of FMV (Full Motion Video) games: They were made by people unfamiliar with games and probably tried selling them to other people unfamiliar with games, but thought the idea was so great that of course it would succeed!

[danielxcutter]

So the villain stuff is actually legit? Huh, aren’t most books in this edition the opposite?

[Floing]

Rope Trick lasts 2 hours per level so that a party can sleep in it starting at Caster Level 4. It would be silly if a 2nd level spell couldn’t perform its obvious primary function until 5 levels after the player learned it.

Sorry for nitpicking, but I believe you are mistaken here. Rope Trick lasts one hour per level and if sleeping in it was intended as the primary function can only be guessed.

[bekeleven]

Sorry for nitpicking, but I believe you are mistaken here. Rope Trick lasts one hour per level and if sleeping in it was intended as the primary function can only be guessed.

You're right! I must have been thinking of the other sleepytime spell, Alarm.