At first, I was apprehensive about a dark fantasy/horror book for d20 fantasy. D&D characters just get too powerful to be really scared of most threats. After all, it’s a game about heroes and overcoming the big evil thing. To me, horror is more about knowing the big evil thing is out there and knowing you probably can’t do anything about it.
That aside, I was pleasantly surprised by Darkness & Dread. Written by Mike Mearls and using the updated 3.5e rules, Darkness & Dread does a very good job of using small changes to the system to get good results.
The first chapter covers characters in a dark fantasy or horror campaign. The first section discusses the pros and cons of using the various core classes (Fighter, Wizard, etc.) in such a game. The advice here is solid, pointing out which classes and class abilities to watch out for and which classes are better suited to a dark game.
The second section introduces a number of new classes. These are designed more to be like Joe or Jane Average in your campaign world that have had the unfortunate luck to be dropped into a horror adventure. In power level, I’d say there better than the standard NPC classes in the DMG, but definitely not powerful enough for the typical D&D game. Since lower powered characters would have more to fear, I’m certain that’s by design.
These classes are usually 5 or 10 levels. Even though the core classes aren’t here, the general ideas are represented. You still have characters good at fighting, characters able to use different kinds of magic, and characters that have various skill abilities. They’re definitely flavored well for an old-world gothic game. None of them seem inappropriately powerful compared the others.
Chapter two covers a few new rules systems for dark campaigns. The first is an alternate hit point system. Under the Health System, characters still gain some hit points with levels, but not nearly as many. This will definitely keep the Soldiers and Pit Fighters from just wading into combat, expecting their mounds of hit points to keep them safe.
The second system adds penalties for incurring wounds. Basically, you can be Healthy, Staggered, Injured, and Critical (and Dead of course). This does a good job of handling one of my D&D disconnects with horror. Nomally, a character with 50 hit points is just as functional in combat as a character with 5. Using the injury penalties, you definitely have problems as your opponents whittle away at you.
The last part of chapter two is about 20 pages of mechanics on fear and insanity. There are clear guidelines on assigning a Fear Rating to fantastic creatures, when the characters should make fear checks, and what happens when they fail. The insanity rules are pretty solid, although I think Unearthed Arcana handled it a little more completely.
Chapter three covers research and investigation. Knowledge can be good and bad in a horror game and a little of both are covered here. There is an interesting little subsystem in here for a Knowledge: (general) check. Basically, as you learn stuff, you learn a little about a lot of things. You can pick up specialties along the way that grant additional bonuses. At first, this skill seems like it would be pretty overpowered compared to regular skills. However, the lower restrictions on maximum ranks and the limited areas of study help to reign it in. It is a neat system, but it does feel a little “bolted on” compared to the smoother integration of other material in the book.
The last section of this chapter deals mainly with books and libraries. There are different books to use, suggestions on library sizes, and even instruction manuals a character can read to gain a small permanent bonus to a skill or a combat situation. Of course, you do get the occasional book that gives misleading information, gives bad advice on your fighting technique, or contains stuff that starts to drive you crazy just thinking about it.
Chapter four covers a subject dear to the hearts of GMs everywhere -- Black Magic. There are two main sections to this. The second section illustrates which of the standard PHB spells belong in the category of Black Magic and what happens to people trying to cast them. These spells will just about always have a bad effect for the caster. The effects get pretty nasty as the spell levels go up. I think most players would balk at the penalties for casting a third level Black Magic spell (d4 CON damage, -2 to all d20 rolls for d10 hours, and d8 madness points), let alone something from sixth level or above.
Now, I covered the second section of this chapter first. The reason is the first section section about dark pacts was kind of a mixed bag for me and I hate to lead off on a negative. Selling a little bit of your soul for some power is a mainstay in dark games and the pacts presented seem reasonably balanced between what you give up and what you gain. My real problem comes in that there aren’t really any guidelines for creating new pacts that might be more specific to your game. Most DMs will be able to look at the benefits and costs of some of them and see the relationships to magic item pricing or the balance of stat bonuses. However, I think this was a missed opportunity for an interesting “look under the hood” to see some solid guidelines on how the powers were created.
Chapter five isn’t very long, but addresses the real stars of a horror game -- Monsters. Two new types of monsters are listed here. The Abomination is essentially a monster that just doesn’t belong in reality. The rules here could be more clear, but you can essentially change an existing monster as if using a template or build one from the ground up, using the hit die, base attack, save bonuses, etc. I don’t think they’re overpowered, but I do think the template version warrants a +1 CR adjustment, while the text says there is no change to CR.
The other new type of creature is the Godling. Godlings aren’t creatures so much as forces of nature. Fighting one is sheer idiocy. Characters confronted with one should either move away at high speed or finish up the new character concept they’ve been working on. The good news for the GM is they’re really easy to stat, since the stats are largely arbitrary. Normally this would be an outrageous thing for a monster, but these are meant to be virtually unstoppable unless you know their weakness (and still hard then).
Finally, the monster section contains some tips on using standard MM monsters in your game. These range from simple “costume change” modifications to a very stripped down version of the ability costing system found in Fantasy Flight Games’ Monster’s Handbook. This is a small section, but very useful for putting some of the fear of the unknown back into the everyday monsters we’ve all seen a hundred times.
Chapter six is largely advice for writing horror adventures and investigations. There really aren’t any mechanics in this section to analyze, although I do like the optional rule regarding heroic character deaths. The advice is pretty solid and would still be of some use writing adventures in other genres.
Chapter seven is a write up of the sample city of Northwall and two sample adventures. Northwall and the surrounding areas aren’t covered in exacting detail, but the passages to provide several adventure hooks and dark little secrets. The adventures are a nice way to tie everything together, demonstrating the pacing of the story and examples of how new rules presented elsewhere in the book can be used in adventures.
There is also a handy appendix at the end showing the Fear Ratings of monsters from the MM that you’d probably want to use in a dark adventure. One thing I really liked is how it shows not only the end result, but the various factors used to arrive at that figure. While the rules on how to figure this are well laid out in the fear and madness section of the book, this chart really helps illustrate how to figure Fear ratings for monsters from other sources.
The bottom line is Darkness & Dread is a good tool for running horror and dark fantasy games. I would definitely recommend it to anyone running such a game. It covers a lot of ground on a broad subject, but without really skimping on anything important.
