Book of Vile Darkness. Used it?

[Creamsteak]

I've used spells, creatures, and some feats from the book.

 

[Olive]

I've used monsters, PrCs and spells, as well as the possession and sacrifice rules.

Great book, I recomend it.

 

[Darrin Drader]

The book is entirely worth the purchase price just for the arch-devils and demons.

 

[Nifft]

Shadow Demon.
Vile Damage.
Corrupt Spells.

I like the BoVD. -- N

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Have you used any [ content from the BOVD ]? and if so do mind sharing you opinions and players reactions.

Used it just yesterday. Shadow demons - deemed "unfair" by certain players since they were insubstantial but could attack. A Thrall to Graz'zt charmed the big barbarian in the group at the final fight and then fled when things still got too hot. Vile damage - definitely vile. Heard several people squawk "DC what?" when evil spellcasters were using liquid pain.

What I think that they hated the most was the damning darkness. That and the three children inside an organ made of bone whose life force was being drained off by the insane bard bent on revenge. The latter isn't in the book, but I certainly got some inspiration for it from BoVD.

 

[MerakSpielman]

The book is entirely worth the purchase price just for the arch-devils and demons.

Interesting. Those are what I would judge to be the least likely parts of the book for me to use.

I am implementing BoVD rules for my lastest campaign. None of the players have the book, so everything from it that they meet is totally new to them. Recently, they were stopped by customs officials who wanted to search their packs for illegal drugs. Since they had recently found some vials of "unidentified substance" they weren't sure if they were suddenly about to get arrested. Lucky for them, I'm not that much a rat bastard.

I'm also planning to use the PrCs, diseases (what do you mean I'm sick after taking lots of acid damage?), poisons, spells, the sacrifice rules, and some of the feats and items.

 

[Vexed]

I use it as a dm and a player. Mostly for the Devils and Demons in my campaign. Great resource for that.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

We use it all the time now. It's added a whole new layer of erotic wonder to the game. Now every session is a symphony of pleasu....

Oh. I thought you meant the BoEF.
No we don't use the Book of Vile Darkness, that $%!+ is perverted.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

There are some interesting rules - Dark Speech (I believe that's what it's called - I always refer to it as Black Speech, after Tolkien) really models Tolkien's Black Speech well, and is a cool addition. Vile damage is useful and scary, as are the various diseases and suchlike.

 

[Graf]

I held out on buying the BoVD for a long time. Eventually the Dungeon adventure sold me on it and I bought it. Haven't been disappointed.
The book is very useful, for many of the reasons that people have mentioned.

The Prestige classes are very swappable and contain some interesting mechanics you could easily lift to "enhance a villian". The thralls could easily be adapted to other evil organizations (Graz'zt would be a great one for Thay in FR, for example)

With regard to the Demons, princes, etc: A lot of the political and the core aspects of the creatures can be used without actually throwing a CR 20 virtual god into your game.
Ex: Belal (5th level of hell, I think) could just as easily be a depraved mortal king, ruling through his puppet daughter.
Liviticus (painfully mispelled) could just be a powerful wizard/cleric/psion who has been trapped in an intert form and communicates through a choosen follower.

In other words there are a lot of great ideas to mine and throw into the game. Even the simpler magic items provide a lot of interesting roleplaying opportunities.