Mr. Patient
Adventurer
The Year's Best d20, Vol. 1 is 96-page perfect-bound softcover book published by Malhavoc Press, retailing for $20. It's a compilation of open content d20 material published in 2004, selected by Monte Cook, who is of course one of the co-creators of the d20 system. There is no overarching theme to the book; it is simply a collection of interesting bits and pieces from other products, put together in a convenient and attractive package.
Artwork is by Toren Atkinson, Caleb Cleveland, Eric Lofgren, and Scott Purdy; it ranges from decent to terrific. The editing is mostly very good. Without having the original material, I don't know if the small number of typos were simply copied over from the sources or were introduced here. Either way, it's a well-produced volume.
Note: this is not a playtest review.
The Year's Best d20 draws from many sources, including Aasimar and Tiefling (Green Ronin), Love and War (Atlas Games), Tome of Horrors II (Necromancer Games), and more than a dozen others. As it happens, I own none of the original source material for this book, and have not even heard of some of it, so this book was all new to me. Better still, it draws heavily on two books that I've almost purchased a number of times: Unearthed Arcana (Wizards of the Coast) and Denizens of Avadnu (The Inner Circle). This is a very inexpensive way of getting great material from both of those books.
The book begins with a foreword by Cook, recounting the ups and downs of the d20/OGL market since its inception in 2000, explaining the purpose behind the book, and listing some of the criteria used in selecting the material. Five chapters follow: Character Classes, Feats and Skills, Magic, Monsters, and Variant Rules. Cook includes a short blurb with each bit of included material, explaining why he selected it. The Year's Best d20 is careful to provide all the necessary background to use the material; all the setting-specific mechanics are either reproduced here (e.g., Cook includes the prerequisite feats for the feats that he really wants to include) or else generic d20 equivalents are suggested. Almost all of the material is usable in any campaign, something often claimed but rarely true.
The classes chapter includes five prestige classes, one variant class (the urban ranger from Unearthed Arcana) and one core class, the yogi from Goodman Games' Complete Guide to Rakshasas. I've grown pretty weary of prestige classes, but I mostly liked the ones here, especially the cosmosopher from Aasimar and Tiefling, a skeptic who "steals" the divine magic latent in the planes of existence. I'm a bit puzzled at the selection of the arcane warrior from Sword & Sorcery's Advanced Players Guide, not because it's a bad class -- it's a neat implementation of a very tired idea -- but because it has ability score requirements. That's a real faux pas in prestige class design, per Cook's own guidelines and those in the Dungeon Master's Guide II. I imagine that Cook enjoyed everything else about the class enough to let that design problem slip.
The feats in general didn't grab me, except for Spell Cleave and Spell of Opportunity, both from Love and War. You will probably be able to guess how they work just from the names. There are a number of great spells in Chapter 3, especially borrow limb and shadow stitch (from Genjitsu Games' Metablades), escape the bonds of flesh (Sword & Sorcery's Strange Lands: Lost Tribes of the Scarred Lands), and scapegoat (S&S's Relics and Rituals: Olympus). Scapegoat allows the caster to transfer his own bad rolls of the die to an opponent; it's a very clever idea. A few new magic items are introduced, as well. The standout is the spare hand from Metablades, which is sort of a toned-down but useful Hand of Vecna, where the hand can come from a variety of interesting creatures. (This product Metablades, which I had never heard of previously, seems to be chock full of really innovative ideas).
I greatly enjoyed the monsters chapter, especially the material from Denizens of Avadnu. The ethereal adder, who drags opponents to the ethereal plane and leaves them there for days, will see immediate use in my game. I also really liked the kulumar, who steals shadows, and the nightmare collector, a construct with a terrific adventure hook. The unholy chorus (Strange Lands) is an undead creature who gathers others' heads with his vorpal claws and uses them for bardic music. It's very weird, and a lot of fun. There are 23 new monsters, and I like pretty much all of them.
The variant rules chapter includes reserve points, incantations, and spontaneous metamagic from Unearthed Arcana, along with a combat defense system from the Advanced Player's Guide, an intriguing spellcasting-as-skill system, also from the Advanced Player's Guide, and new takes on half-celestials and half-fiends from Aasimar and Tiefling. The combat defense system is d20 root canal in my opinion, and I have no particular need for the new half-fiend and half-celestial, but the Unearthed Arcana material is all terrific. I especially love incantations, which allow characters to perform magical rituals to create very specific effects without necessarily having spellcasting abilities. It really fits the magic you see on TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, if you're into that sort of thing.
In all, I think this is an excellent little book. Monte Cook did a fine job selecting the material, and it's presented very attractively. If you own little or none of the source material included in this book, it's a very inexpensive way of cherry-picking some of the best stuff out there. If I could give half-stars, the book would get 4 1/2. I'm feeling generous, and will violate the d20 rules by rounding up.
Artwork is by Toren Atkinson, Caleb Cleveland, Eric Lofgren, and Scott Purdy; it ranges from decent to terrific. The editing is mostly very good. Without having the original material, I don't know if the small number of typos were simply copied over from the sources or were introduced here. Either way, it's a well-produced volume.
Note: this is not a playtest review.
The Year's Best d20 draws from many sources, including Aasimar and Tiefling (Green Ronin), Love and War (Atlas Games), Tome of Horrors II (Necromancer Games), and more than a dozen others. As it happens, I own none of the original source material for this book, and have not even heard of some of it, so this book was all new to me. Better still, it draws heavily on two books that I've almost purchased a number of times: Unearthed Arcana (Wizards of the Coast) and Denizens of Avadnu (The Inner Circle). This is a very inexpensive way of getting great material from both of those books.
The book begins with a foreword by Cook, recounting the ups and downs of the d20/OGL market since its inception in 2000, explaining the purpose behind the book, and listing some of the criteria used in selecting the material. Five chapters follow: Character Classes, Feats and Skills, Magic, Monsters, and Variant Rules. Cook includes a short blurb with each bit of included material, explaining why he selected it. The Year's Best d20 is careful to provide all the necessary background to use the material; all the setting-specific mechanics are either reproduced here (e.g., Cook includes the prerequisite feats for the feats that he really wants to include) or else generic d20 equivalents are suggested. Almost all of the material is usable in any campaign, something often claimed but rarely true.
The classes chapter includes five prestige classes, one variant class (the urban ranger from Unearthed Arcana) and one core class, the yogi from Goodman Games' Complete Guide to Rakshasas. I've grown pretty weary of prestige classes, but I mostly liked the ones here, especially the cosmosopher from Aasimar and Tiefling, a skeptic who "steals" the divine magic latent in the planes of existence. I'm a bit puzzled at the selection of the arcane warrior from Sword & Sorcery's Advanced Players Guide, not because it's a bad class -- it's a neat implementation of a very tired idea -- but because it has ability score requirements. That's a real faux pas in prestige class design, per Cook's own guidelines and those in the Dungeon Master's Guide II. I imagine that Cook enjoyed everything else about the class enough to let that design problem slip.
The feats in general didn't grab me, except for Spell Cleave and Spell of Opportunity, both from Love and War. You will probably be able to guess how they work just from the names. There are a number of great spells in Chapter 3, especially borrow limb and shadow stitch (from Genjitsu Games' Metablades), escape the bonds of flesh (Sword & Sorcery's Strange Lands: Lost Tribes of the Scarred Lands), and scapegoat (S&S's Relics and Rituals: Olympus). Scapegoat allows the caster to transfer his own bad rolls of the die to an opponent; it's a very clever idea. A few new magic items are introduced, as well. The standout is the spare hand from Metablades, which is sort of a toned-down but useful Hand of Vecna, where the hand can come from a variety of interesting creatures. (This product Metablades, which I had never heard of previously, seems to be chock full of really innovative ideas).
I greatly enjoyed the monsters chapter, especially the material from Denizens of Avadnu. The ethereal adder, who drags opponents to the ethereal plane and leaves them there for days, will see immediate use in my game. I also really liked the kulumar, who steals shadows, and the nightmare collector, a construct with a terrific adventure hook. The unholy chorus (Strange Lands) is an undead creature who gathers others' heads with his vorpal claws and uses them for bardic music. It's very weird, and a lot of fun. There are 23 new monsters, and I like pretty much all of them.
The variant rules chapter includes reserve points, incantations, and spontaneous metamagic from Unearthed Arcana, along with a combat defense system from the Advanced Player's Guide, an intriguing spellcasting-as-skill system, also from the Advanced Player's Guide, and new takes on half-celestials and half-fiends from Aasimar and Tiefling. The combat defense system is d20 root canal in my opinion, and I have no particular need for the new half-fiend and half-celestial, but the Unearthed Arcana material is all terrific. I especially love incantations, which allow characters to perform magical rituals to create very specific effects without necessarily having spellcasting abilities. It really fits the magic you see on TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, if you're into that sort of thing.
In all, I think this is an excellent little book. Monte Cook did a fine job selecting the material, and it's presented very attractively. If you own little or none of the source material included in this book, it's a very inexpensive way of cherry-picking some of the best stuff out there. If I could give half-stars, the book would get 4 1/2. I'm feeling generous, and will violate the d20 rules by rounding up.
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