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Champions of Ruin
- Thread starter IronWolf
- Start date
JoeGKushner
First Post
Take one part Book of Vile Darkness and add to Forgotten Realms
Champions of Ruin
Published by Wizards of the Coast
Written by Jeff Crook, Wil Upchurch, Eric L. Boyd
160 full color pages
$29.95
Champions of Ruin is the latest Forgotten Realms hardcover to come from Wizards of the Coast. The book provides tools to players to create evil characters, with feats, spells, races, magic items and PrCs and Dungeon Masters to run them with details on organizations and opposition in the form of new monsters and NPCs.
Like Heroes of Battle, this book reflects the recent price change, the dropping from 192 pages to 160, and the inclusion of multiple pages of advertisements. Unlike Heroes of Battle though, this being a Forgotten Realms book, the production values are top notch and the art is overall great. Even so, it’s a bit of sticker shock even though I personal feel that it’s not overpriced, just higher priced that it was a month or so ago.
Champions starts off with an introduction that gives some brief advice on evil characters, both NPCs and PCs, and why they may be evil. Purely starter stuff afaic. After the intro, the book starts straight into the game mechanics with three new races.
I’m not impressed with ‘em to be honest. The draegloth are a cross between a drow and a demon. Yeah, can we kill all the drow already? I mean, no, seriously. As an online comic spoofed, it’s been the year of the drow since 2001, and once again, the fiction of the setting interferes with the game world as it refers to the Spider Goddess still missing, when I believe that yeah, she’s back already.
Outside of that, it uses a monster advancement to account for it’s hit dice and level adjustment. This is a game function that I think is just broken in D&D and think that Arcana Evolved and other systems that use a racial level adjustment where hit dice are not tampered with based on level, is better. See, because it doesn’t get hit dice at every level, it’s skill point and feat progression don’t actually follow it’s level.
Next up, a the extaminaar, a more human version of the yuan-ti. I had enough of these over the years including in the recent Serpent Kingdoms.
Lastly, the krinth, another spawn of demons, this time from the Netherese wizards who were in the City of Shade.
New races are often difficult to come up with and just having new races that are in essence ‘Fiendish’, does nothing for me so that crosses off both the draegloth and krintn as being new and unusual and the fact that their both tied into the various fiction elements also gives me a big yawn on ‘em.
Some of the feats look to be of interest to anyone playing a fighter who wishes to do some serious damage. These range from sneak attack augmentation like the feat Craven, where you deal extra damage equal to your level on sneak attacks, even though you suffer a –2 on saves vs. fear effects, to Dire Flail Smash, where a target struck by both sides of your dire flail has to make a Fortitude Save or be dazed for one round.
Some feats seem related in terms of what they do, but for different types of weapon, and the text looks wrong either for one of them, or two of them. Flay Foe, Pulverize Foe and Skewer Foe (which looks like it should have a footnote style 1 instead of the 1 being at the end of the word Foe), all deal an extra 1d6 points of damage after your first successful attack in that round. In the text however, Flay Foe notes it’s an extra point of damage, even though the other feats text still puts it at 1d6. Two obvious editing errors in one spot that even I can casually catch is not a good sign of the proof reader’s ability.
Spellcasters aren’t left out though. They update Corrupt Spell, so that it’s a little clearer in the text, that the spell you select it for has to be chosen at the same time the spell is, as well as getting rid of the +1 level boost for the spell. More powerful is the Reaping Spell, where a target killed by a spell cannot be brought back from the dead through raised, reincarnation or resurrection. The spell uses up a spell slot three levels higher though.
Even the clerics who usually don’t get a lot of options, have several new Initiate Feats to look over. We have Ghaunadaur, Gruumsh, Kossuth, Loviatar, Shar, and Varae. Each one with different prerequisites, benefits and additional spells.
I’m impressed with the feat selection in terms of types as rogues, mages, clerics, and fighters will all have some options here. Heck, even bards get a new Bardic Feat, Doomspeak where the target has to make a Will Save or take a –10 penalty on attack, saves, ability checks and skill checks for 1 round.
For new spells, befitting a book of evil, we have new spells not only for the core classes like bards, clerics, druids, rangers and sorcerers, but also assassins and clerics. These are arrange by class, then by level, and for arcane casters, by school. One of my favorite is the spellslayer arrow that deals extra damage to creatures with ongoing spells cast on it, the more spells the more damage. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have a sidebar for the Hexblade, as that class would seem appropriate for one devoted to ‘evil’ or having ‘evil’ origins and backgrounds.
In looking at the magic items, I note that they include construction including caster gold piece, experience point, and days added to some of the items here, as well as market cost. Some of the abilities here are fairly useful for any character, like the special weapon property Doomstrike, that lets a wielder with Improved Sunder, who successfully uses it, make an immediate attack into the enemy as though using Cleave. Others like the specific Flensing Gauntlet though, are appropriate for evil characters as this weapon in essence strips the flesh off your enemies doing Constitution and Charisma damage if the victim fails a Fortitude save. In terms of artifacts, anyone whose read the Portrait of Dorian Gray, will recognize the Gray Portrait, an artifact that protects the user from negative levels, ability drain and aging.
The prestige classes here follow the new standards of WoTC including general details, how to become a member of that class, class features, how to play that class, how that class fits into the world, typical NPC reactions, PrC Lore, with different DC listings for different pieces of lore, how the class works in the game, and a sample encounter. One thing I’d like to add, is that they separated class skills, making them, in my opinion, much more readable, then they previously were. Each of these PrCs is a full ten levels.
Some of the PrCs are perfect antagonists for any game like the Black Blood Cultist that uses it’s rage to augment it’s Improved Unarmed Strike to claw and bite attacks in their worship of Malar. If the GM enjoys tinkering with and advancing monsters, the Thayan Gladiator, a master of combat, requires at least one natural weapon and as it advances, continues to improve it’s abilities through improved natural attacks, improved critical and improved natural armor.
Others like the Justice of Weald and Woe, are meant to take revenge against those who harm you first. In so doing, they have their own spell list, extra sneak attack, poison use, bonus feats and eventually, a death attack similar to the assassin and poison immunity. It’s a good combination between assassin and ranger. Ironically enough, despite ties in the background and details to elf culture, there is no entry requirement for the race of elf. Another editing mistake perhaps?
Those players looking for strength in numbers, and those GMs looking for patrons for evil characters, will enjoy chapter four, Evil Organizations. Not a very in-depth look at evil, as some of these organizations in 2nd and 1st edition had whole sourcebooks devoted to them, it nonetheless gives the GM enough information to base his own take of the guild on. Each organization starts with name, background, areas of influence, how to join, costs and benefits of membership, acting within the organization, and acting outside the organization. Included are the following: Cult of the Dragon, Cults of the Moon, The Eldreth Veluuthra, Monks of the Dark Moon, Sharran Cells, The Unworthy of Illsensine, and an old favorite, the Zhentarim.
Those looking to add unusual elements to their game will enjoy Chapter Five, Evil Places. It provides details on the game effects of Nodes, Shrines, and other Evil Sites, including some mapped out locations and NPC statistics for the creatures that dwell there. The Nodes are interesting in that they can add levels to the caster’s effective casting level, or in some cases, even spells to evil casters, but it requires some mastery to employee those benefits. Nodes even have ratings, that number is the one added to the caster’s level. Most are lower level, one or two, but there are nodes of up to five. Nice boost in power there.
GMs new to running evil games should read through the introduction, covering why some people may fall to evil, as well as chapter six, as the first part of it, provides some basic advice on how to handle the tone of your game, giving the players what they want, and trying to insure that players don’t wind up backstabbing and killing one another. Some fairly obvious stuff there and certainly not up to the old 1st Edition DMG where Assassin was a core class and we had the wandering Prostitute Table, but for the PC climate going on these days, better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. In some ways, it’s a sore spot with me as we have some campaign settings like the City State of the Invincible Overlord where good isn’t even the default alignment or like the Black Company where they waved bye-bye to it. People are complex, alignment isn’t.
GMs will also get some additional use from chapter six though, as it also includes a section on enemies and allies, providing several fully fleshed out NPCs with background, and goals. I wasn’t overly impressed with this section as I like to personalize and craft my NPCs to match the players, but for time pressed GMs, they’ll enjoy the section. I did however, enjoy the art in this area as it’s got some great pieces, including a monk by Wayne England and a extaminaar rogue by Jason Engle among other pieces.
In that vein then, it’s odd that we get another chapter, Champions of Evil, where it starts off with more NPCs. Why they weren’t cataloged with the previous enemies and allies…. Well, outside of their power level, I don’t know. We get some old entities that were once human like Aumvor the Undying, a lich from Netheril who finds himself in an odd position as some of those citizens have returned via the whole Shade thing in the current fiction line. Once again, a problem with having a game line and fiction line interact as we get X, Y, and Z from Netheril.
Some of the other creatures either shouldn’t be here, or should have much different stats. Take Kezef the Chaos Hound. In the fiction, and in it’s current background in this product, it hunts Mask. Just so we’re on the same page, Mask is a god. This thing clocks in at a CR 21. Mask should pretty much just turn around and slap it down. Part of the problem with having Elder Evils given stats and having stats for the gods of the same setting is that you can see these things, even on their best day, might be able to only injury the Avatar of the deity and never the deity itself.
Overall the crunch helps push the book into the "useful" category for me. While I was unimpressed with the races and the depth of coverage that the organizations received, and to be honest, don't need my hand held to tell me what 'evil' is, I enjoyed a lot of the other game mechanics and it's always nice to have some high powered evil enemies ready to throw at the players in a moments notice. Add this to the great layout and easy eye candy from some of the industry's best artists, and you've got a book that'll see use in my campaign even if it's just the NPC's taking the abilities and classes here.
Champions of Ruin
Published by Wizards of the Coast
Written by Jeff Crook, Wil Upchurch, Eric L. Boyd
160 full color pages
$29.95
Champions of Ruin is the latest Forgotten Realms hardcover to come from Wizards of the Coast. The book provides tools to players to create evil characters, with feats, spells, races, magic items and PrCs and Dungeon Masters to run them with details on organizations and opposition in the form of new monsters and NPCs.
Like Heroes of Battle, this book reflects the recent price change, the dropping from 192 pages to 160, and the inclusion of multiple pages of advertisements. Unlike Heroes of Battle though, this being a Forgotten Realms book, the production values are top notch and the art is overall great. Even so, it’s a bit of sticker shock even though I personal feel that it’s not overpriced, just higher priced that it was a month or so ago.
Champions starts off with an introduction that gives some brief advice on evil characters, both NPCs and PCs, and why they may be evil. Purely starter stuff afaic. After the intro, the book starts straight into the game mechanics with three new races.
I’m not impressed with ‘em to be honest. The draegloth are a cross between a drow and a demon. Yeah, can we kill all the drow already? I mean, no, seriously. As an online comic spoofed, it’s been the year of the drow since 2001, and once again, the fiction of the setting interferes with the game world as it refers to the Spider Goddess still missing, when I believe that yeah, she’s back already.
Outside of that, it uses a monster advancement to account for it’s hit dice and level adjustment. This is a game function that I think is just broken in D&D and think that Arcana Evolved and other systems that use a racial level adjustment where hit dice are not tampered with based on level, is better. See, because it doesn’t get hit dice at every level, it’s skill point and feat progression don’t actually follow it’s level.
Next up, a the extaminaar, a more human version of the yuan-ti. I had enough of these over the years including in the recent Serpent Kingdoms.
Lastly, the krinth, another spawn of demons, this time from the Netherese wizards who were in the City of Shade.
New races are often difficult to come up with and just having new races that are in essence ‘Fiendish’, does nothing for me so that crosses off both the draegloth and krintn as being new and unusual and the fact that their both tied into the various fiction elements also gives me a big yawn on ‘em.
Some of the feats look to be of interest to anyone playing a fighter who wishes to do some serious damage. These range from sneak attack augmentation like the feat Craven, where you deal extra damage equal to your level on sneak attacks, even though you suffer a –2 on saves vs. fear effects, to Dire Flail Smash, where a target struck by both sides of your dire flail has to make a Fortitude Save or be dazed for one round.
Some feats seem related in terms of what they do, but for different types of weapon, and the text looks wrong either for one of them, or two of them. Flay Foe, Pulverize Foe and Skewer Foe (which looks like it should have a footnote style 1 instead of the 1 being at the end of the word Foe), all deal an extra 1d6 points of damage after your first successful attack in that round. In the text however, Flay Foe notes it’s an extra point of damage, even though the other feats text still puts it at 1d6. Two obvious editing errors in one spot that even I can casually catch is not a good sign of the proof reader’s ability.
Spellcasters aren’t left out though. They update Corrupt Spell, so that it’s a little clearer in the text, that the spell you select it for has to be chosen at the same time the spell is, as well as getting rid of the +1 level boost for the spell. More powerful is the Reaping Spell, where a target killed by a spell cannot be brought back from the dead through raised, reincarnation or resurrection. The spell uses up a spell slot three levels higher though.
Even the clerics who usually don’t get a lot of options, have several new Initiate Feats to look over. We have Ghaunadaur, Gruumsh, Kossuth, Loviatar, Shar, and Varae. Each one with different prerequisites, benefits and additional spells.
I’m impressed with the feat selection in terms of types as rogues, mages, clerics, and fighters will all have some options here. Heck, even bards get a new Bardic Feat, Doomspeak where the target has to make a Will Save or take a –10 penalty on attack, saves, ability checks and skill checks for 1 round.
For new spells, befitting a book of evil, we have new spells not only for the core classes like bards, clerics, druids, rangers and sorcerers, but also assassins and clerics. These are arrange by class, then by level, and for arcane casters, by school. One of my favorite is the spellslayer arrow that deals extra damage to creatures with ongoing spells cast on it, the more spells the more damage. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have a sidebar for the Hexblade, as that class would seem appropriate for one devoted to ‘evil’ or having ‘evil’ origins and backgrounds.
In looking at the magic items, I note that they include construction including caster gold piece, experience point, and days added to some of the items here, as well as market cost. Some of the abilities here are fairly useful for any character, like the special weapon property Doomstrike, that lets a wielder with Improved Sunder, who successfully uses it, make an immediate attack into the enemy as though using Cleave. Others like the specific Flensing Gauntlet though, are appropriate for evil characters as this weapon in essence strips the flesh off your enemies doing Constitution and Charisma damage if the victim fails a Fortitude save. In terms of artifacts, anyone whose read the Portrait of Dorian Gray, will recognize the Gray Portrait, an artifact that protects the user from negative levels, ability drain and aging.
The prestige classes here follow the new standards of WoTC including general details, how to become a member of that class, class features, how to play that class, how that class fits into the world, typical NPC reactions, PrC Lore, with different DC listings for different pieces of lore, how the class works in the game, and a sample encounter. One thing I’d like to add, is that they separated class skills, making them, in my opinion, much more readable, then they previously were. Each of these PrCs is a full ten levels.
Some of the PrCs are perfect antagonists for any game like the Black Blood Cultist that uses it’s rage to augment it’s Improved Unarmed Strike to claw and bite attacks in their worship of Malar. If the GM enjoys tinkering with and advancing monsters, the Thayan Gladiator, a master of combat, requires at least one natural weapon and as it advances, continues to improve it’s abilities through improved natural attacks, improved critical and improved natural armor.
Others like the Justice of Weald and Woe, are meant to take revenge against those who harm you first. In so doing, they have their own spell list, extra sneak attack, poison use, bonus feats and eventually, a death attack similar to the assassin and poison immunity. It’s a good combination between assassin and ranger. Ironically enough, despite ties in the background and details to elf culture, there is no entry requirement for the race of elf. Another editing mistake perhaps?
Those players looking for strength in numbers, and those GMs looking for patrons for evil characters, will enjoy chapter four, Evil Organizations. Not a very in-depth look at evil, as some of these organizations in 2nd and 1st edition had whole sourcebooks devoted to them, it nonetheless gives the GM enough information to base his own take of the guild on. Each organization starts with name, background, areas of influence, how to join, costs and benefits of membership, acting within the organization, and acting outside the organization. Included are the following: Cult of the Dragon, Cults of the Moon, The Eldreth Veluuthra, Monks of the Dark Moon, Sharran Cells, The Unworthy of Illsensine, and an old favorite, the Zhentarim.
Those looking to add unusual elements to their game will enjoy Chapter Five, Evil Places. It provides details on the game effects of Nodes, Shrines, and other Evil Sites, including some mapped out locations and NPC statistics for the creatures that dwell there. The Nodes are interesting in that they can add levels to the caster’s effective casting level, or in some cases, even spells to evil casters, but it requires some mastery to employee those benefits. Nodes even have ratings, that number is the one added to the caster’s level. Most are lower level, one or two, but there are nodes of up to five. Nice boost in power there.
GMs new to running evil games should read through the introduction, covering why some people may fall to evil, as well as chapter six, as the first part of it, provides some basic advice on how to handle the tone of your game, giving the players what they want, and trying to insure that players don’t wind up backstabbing and killing one another. Some fairly obvious stuff there and certainly not up to the old 1st Edition DMG where Assassin was a core class and we had the wandering Prostitute Table, but for the PC climate going on these days, better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. In some ways, it’s a sore spot with me as we have some campaign settings like the City State of the Invincible Overlord where good isn’t even the default alignment or like the Black Company where they waved bye-bye to it. People are complex, alignment isn’t.
GMs will also get some additional use from chapter six though, as it also includes a section on enemies and allies, providing several fully fleshed out NPCs with background, and goals. I wasn’t overly impressed with this section as I like to personalize and craft my NPCs to match the players, but for time pressed GMs, they’ll enjoy the section. I did however, enjoy the art in this area as it’s got some great pieces, including a monk by Wayne England and a extaminaar rogue by Jason Engle among other pieces.
In that vein then, it’s odd that we get another chapter, Champions of Evil, where it starts off with more NPCs. Why they weren’t cataloged with the previous enemies and allies…. Well, outside of their power level, I don’t know. We get some old entities that were once human like Aumvor the Undying, a lich from Netheril who finds himself in an odd position as some of those citizens have returned via the whole Shade thing in the current fiction line. Once again, a problem with having a game line and fiction line interact as we get X, Y, and Z from Netheril.
Some of the other creatures either shouldn’t be here, or should have much different stats. Take Kezef the Chaos Hound. In the fiction, and in it’s current background in this product, it hunts Mask. Just so we’re on the same page, Mask is a god. This thing clocks in at a CR 21. Mask should pretty much just turn around and slap it down. Part of the problem with having Elder Evils given stats and having stats for the gods of the same setting is that you can see these things, even on their best day, might be able to only injury the Avatar of the deity and never the deity itself.
Overall the crunch helps push the book into the "useful" category for me. While I was unimpressed with the races and the depth of coverage that the organizations received, and to be honest, don't need my hand held to tell me what 'evil' is, I enjoyed a lot of the other game mechanics and it's always nice to have some high powered evil enemies ready to throw at the players in a moments notice. Add this to the great layout and easy eye candy from some of the industry's best artists, and you've got a book that'll see use in my campaign even if it's just the NPC's taking the abilities and classes here.
HellHound
ENnies winner and NOT Scrappy Doo
I'm actually interested in picking this up now, as I have three Draegloth as major NPCs in my campaign, running on the creature stats from the Monsters of Faerun book.
Hopefully the other material will make up for the price tag... that's pretty steep for a Draegloth.
Hopefully the other material will make up for the price tag... that's pretty steep for a Draegloth.
I personally believed that flay foe was reduced to only 1 point of extra damage in order to make using bludgeoning and piercing weapons more attractive options for a fighter. Practically every fighter or barbarian uses greatswords or greataxes (or the occassional falchion) because they are mechanically superior to most other two-handed weapons. These feats basically make a longspear or flail wielding fighter an attractive option.
JoeGKushner
First Post
Perhaps, but the table text doesn't match the actual text so one way of the other, the dreaded editing beast strikes again!
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