Amazon listing for the Book of Vile Darkness

[Klaus]

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Book-Vile-Darkness-4th-Supplement/dp/0786958685/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302050925&sr=8-4]Amazon.com: The Book of Vile Darkness: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement (9780786958689): Robert J. Schwalb: Books[/ame]

The description lists it as coming with a 32-page facsimile BoVD (all fluff), a 96-page rulebook with mostly DM stuff, but also some player stuff for those who with to "flirt with evil", and a poster map.

The cover has a happy-looking Larva Mage.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I really am not sure what niche this book is trying to fill.

If it has rituals and feats and powers and such, that is all player stuff, not NPCs as NPCs run under different rules.

Sure, some players might want to go this route, and more power to them, but what percentage of players is that? I just cannot see this book selling well at all.

It is especially annoying to me (who wants to buy books) that they are selling books that seem to be very niche from the get go, possibly leading to the self-fulfilling prophecy that book sales are dead.

Basically there are four books this year.

1: Heroes of Shadow. For the whitish grey to darkish grey heroes among us, it has vampires, and is a mishmash of essentials and traditional 4E support.

2: Neverwinter campaign Setting. Sure, maybe you can port it out to other places easily (and I am sure it is being built to do that), but it is FR, so a subset CS. Supposedly will have themes and a new class in it, so that might help its sales.

3: Heroes of the Feywild. Don't know anything about this book yet, but will probably be like the HoS, a mishmash of 4E and Essentials stuff, and probably some new races, and a class.

4: BoVD 4E. As said above.

(5) Reworked PHBI classes. I am tempted to call this a book as it (might be) is freely available from DDI, and will cover a bunch of classes, plus having multi-class (maybe even hybrid) rules for 4E and Essentials.

So anemic at best, and each one (IMHO) is a bit niche. Will this support those who want to kill the dead tree format? I think so.

 

[SteveC]

I know this is a tie-in with the sci-fi movie, but was this a product anyone was asking for?

More and more I'm asking myself who is greenlighting these books and stopping others... I mean a book for those interested in flirting with darkness, as opposed to a new book of magic items for the rarity system? Uh, I know which one I'd like.

Cheers on the info, however!

 

[Aegeri]

Did anyone actually want this?

Really, we're giving up books that would add useful options for a wide variety of players like Arcane Power 2, Divine Power 2 and Primal Power 2 for this.

Really?

 

[IanB]

Did anyone actually want this?

Really, we're giving up books that would add useful options for a wide variety of players like Arcane Power 2, Divine Power 2 and Primal Power 2 for this.

Really?

Are we? This sounds like a little paperback bundle along the lines of the modules (but with a higher list price), I'm not in publishing so I don't know the relative costs of producing these things but my guess is that this isn't really the same niche as that stuff.

 

[ppaladin123]

Did anyone actually want this?

Really, we're giving up books that would add useful options for a wide variety of players like Arcane Power 2, Divine Power 2 and Primal Power 2 for this.

Really?

It is rather odd given all that talk about how they don't want to add further bloat but rather provide support for what is already in the game. Then they release vampires and shades and blade singers and vyrloka into the already crowded race and class pool.

Hey, here are some things that are already in the game and could use some support:

bard, changeling, artificer, runepriest, minotaur, invoker, seeker, shardmind, warden, and so on.

It's like they have decided that adding depth* is "bloat" but adding breadth is is totally awesome even as they push into smaller and smaller niches. And even if I were one of the people interested in those niche builds, I know enough from their previous behavior that they'll never support the new classes/races after the book the introduced them. It will be the runepriest or changeling all over again.

*Except of course for fighters and wizards. You can never have enough fighter and wizard powers.

 

[Incenjucar]

I wonder if this book won't be designed more for Siffy fans than for D&D players...

"A 32-page facsimile of the Book of Vile Darkness"

This is the sort of stuff you find in a special edition DVD boxed set.

 

[Negflar2099]

I get what everyone is saying, that this is a very niche product, but I have to disagree. Everything in all other 4e books is geared towards playing the hero. If this book includes a few options for those who want to run evil campaigns I could see that as a big boon. Just by two cents.

 

[Incenjucar]

I get what everyone is saying, that this is a very niche product, but I have to disagree. Everything in all other 4e books is geared towards playing the hero. If this book includes a few options for those who want to run evil campaigns I could see that as a big boon. Just by two cents.

Historically, WotC's impression of a mature, evil campaign includes magical Nipple Clamps of Exquisite Pain.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I get what everyone is saying, that this is a very niche product, but I have to disagree. Everything in all other 4e books is geared towards playing the hero. If this book includes a few options for those who want to run evil campaigns I could see that as a big boon. Just by two cents.

I would argue that the people who do are indeed a niche.