Book of Vile Darkness. Used it?

[Holy Bovine]

Have used it in the 'background' of my current campaign. The PCs haven't really come into direct contact with anything from the BoVD but the clues are there as to what is really going on in their situation (should get a lot of 'eeeewwwwwww's when they finally figure it out )

 

[Mystery Man]

I hope it works at spooking the players (intended as a Halloween-time module/adventure), but also at showing them just how bad evil characters can be.

Oh heck yes. Stop heart, and a quickened Grim Revenge will have the PC's thinking about running by the second round.

Used very sparingly the BoVD is great.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

'Never over the top'? I haven;t fully read the BoVD, but going by the stuff in Dragon 300...

Searing Seed? I had to go scrub my eyes with steel wool and swarfega after that.

As was discussed when Dragon 300 and the BoVD came out, Dragon 300 was not a really accurate gauge as to what the BoVD was like. The Dragon article was written by someone besides Monte Cook, who was the author of the BoVD. Many people were of the opinion that the Dragon 300 articles, especially some of the spells, were more egregiously offensive than the BoVD.

 

[EricNoah]

I used one of the prestige classes as an alternative to "advancement by hit dice" for certain evil outsiders. So instead of beefing up a devil with extra HD I would just give it a few levels of hellfire channeller or whatevertheheck it's called. But I haven't used much else.

 

[Psion]

The character options (classes, spells, domains, feats) are generally decent. The races are bland. Some of the optional rules are great in flavor and utility (psychic venom, sacrifices, etc.) and some of them are very bad (including the obviously-not-written-by-Monte execution rules.)

I've used mostly the character options and templates. I sort of cobbled the shadow demon together with the ToH one for my game as well.

Re: Dragon 300. Generally I argree with what the Colonel has said; Dragon 300 is "worse" (meaning "stupider in its innane attempts at being edgy") than most of what appears in BoVD, but Lichloved comes close.

 

[MerakSpielman]

As was discussed when Dragon 300 and the BoVD came out, Dragon 300 was not a really accurate gauge as to what the BoVD was like. The Dragon article was written by someone besides Monte Cook, who was the author of the BoVD. Many people were of the opinion that the Dragon 300 articles, especially some of the spells, were more egregiously offensive than the BoVD.

Yes, it was far less Vile than I had anticipated. I mean, if they're going to generate hundreds of flame-wars worth of contraversy, the least they can do is actually live up to the hype.

 

[Psion]

Yes, it was far less Vile than I had anticipated. I mean, if they're going to generate hundreds of flame-wars worth of contraversy, the least they can do is actually live up to the hype.

I'm sort of glad they didn't, personally. "The Book of Vile Hype" would have been a useless book to me.

 

[maddman75]

Used it just yesterday. Shadow demons - deemed "unfair" by certain players since they were insubstantial but could attack.

You think that's bad, listen to them whine when you give one levels in Ranger and Mortal Hunter.

 

[Desdichado]

I've thought about integrating some BoVD, CoC d20 and the Green Ronin Book of Fiends material into a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying-esque game. I think the material it has is actually pretty good.

 

[Pants]

I've used a coupe of monsters from the book.


Well, some of them are weaker than the minions of an other. You have Demogorgon, ruler of the 88th layer of the Abyss, who has twelve CR 27 Marilith blackguards as minions.
Then there's Graz'zt, who is (according to the book) 'One of the most powerful demons in all the Abyss'. He rules three layers. His butt can be kicked by any of Demogorgon's twelve Mariliths, since he's only CR 24...

Not really. Most of Demo's minions have CR's horribly high for their power potential. Most of the Archdevils are, consequently, quite powerful for their respective CR's.