Book of Hell: Any thoughts?

[Psion]

Hey all,

After payday arrived, I was contemplating new purchases. Doing a planar thing right now, Book of Hell caught my eye. Alas, buying that big a book on one plane seemed like it might be overkill.

What is everyone's impressions of it? Does it have worthwhile possibilities of use in a game that doesn't center around hell but just the occasional visit?

 

[Piratecat]

I'm doing a Hell-centered plot right now, so this might be useful... but Mongoose books don't always fit my gaming style. I'd also welcome any feedback.

 

[Voadam]

I'm doing a Hell-centered plot right now, so this might be useful... but Mongoose books don't always fit my gaming style. I'd also welcome any feedback.

Ditto but the plot for me is planned for the future.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I haven't seen too many reviews of this. It's funny because when I asked them at Gen Con if they needed any reviews of their products they indicated that they had a large number of reviewers already handling their work. Perhaps they meant John Cooper?

 

[tassander]

I bought it and I'm a little disappointed. Not because the book's material is bad or anything, but it does not fulfill what it sets out to do, imho.

Mongoose advertised it saying that it's easy to incorporate in your campaign, using all the well known devils and so on.

I make extensive use of infernal politics imc, and "Hell" imc is very similar to the official Hell/Baator, as per the Manual of Planes or Planescape.

The Book of Hell, otoh., invents a whole new plane called Infernum, and that's their "Hell". This "Hell" is situated "above" the Abyss, Baator and the other evil planes. This new plane is the books main focus, and while it has a number of nice ideas, they really, really don't mesh well with the standard cosmology, at all.
I was hoping for sth. like the excellent appendices in Legions of Hell or Armies of the Abyss, and i was sorely disappointed.

My advice: if you've got no cosmology so far, and if Hell never came up in your games before, you can do worse than buying this book. If you have a cosmology, even the short appendices in Legions of Hell or the descriptions of the Lords of Evil in the BoVD are probably more useful.
I'd kind of compare the Book of Hell to Myfair Games old Demons boxed sets, which I loved, but never used.

 

[Voadam]

I bought it and I'm a little disappointed. Not because the book's material is bad or anything, but it does not fulfill what it sets out to do, imho.

Mongoose advertised it saying that it's easy to incorporate in your campaign, using all the well known devils and so on.

I make extensive use of infernal politics imc, and "Hell" imc is very similar to the official Hell/Baator, as per the Manual of Planes or Planescape.

The Book of Hell, otoh., invents a whole new plane called Infernum, and that's their "Hell". This "Hell" is situated "above" the Abyss, Baator and the other evil planes. This new plane is the books main focus, and while it has a number of nice ideas, they really, really don't mesh well with the standard cosmology, at all.
I was hoping for sth. like the excellent appendices in Legions of Hell or Armies of the Abyss, and i was sorely disappointed.

My advice: if you've got no cosmology so far, and if Hell never came up in your games before, you can do worse than buying this book. If you have a cosmology, even the short appendices in Legions of Hell or the descriptions of the Lords of Evil in the BoVD are probably more useful.
I'd kind of compare the Book of Hell to Myfair Games old Demons boxed sets, which I loved, but never used.

Does it have significant numbers of new devils?

Are the mechanics all screwed up like in Slayer's guide to demons?

 

[tassander]

Does it have significant numbers of new devils?

Are the mechanics all screwed up like in Slayer's guide to demons?

About a dozen devils and about a dozen new demons as well, as it deals with their own definition of hell. It also has "demon bikers from hell" sth. that's prolly more suited for a d20modern campaign.

there's not a lot of crunch in there, and I don't usually check for correct rules implementation. As I said, in terms of attitude it remindes me of the old Myfair Games Role Aid stuff on demons.

There's also a chapter about Infernal Equipment. That stuff's a lot like chaositech, and as I'm already using that I can't use that stuff either, as it would lead to confusions, and doesn't work well in my world, fluff-wise.
If you don't have Chaositech and you like grafts, you might like that.

 

[Shemeska]

Dunno, I've run my PCs into Baator on a few occasions but since I'm running a planar campaign that fits the label of 'Planescape' more than not, I've got the older Planescape material themselves. And that puts any 3rd party supplement, even WotC material on the same subjects, in a harsh light with a large pair of shoes to fill. Plus I prefer to make up my own locations/personalities/plot ideas than I do take them from any 3rd party book.

 

[John Cooper]

Originally posted by JoeGKusher:

I haven't seen too many reviews of this. It's funny because when I asked them at Gen Con if they needed any reviews of their products they indicated that they had a large number of reviewers already handling their work. Perhaps they meant John Cooper?

Nope, not me, Joe. I was told that Mongoose is currently rethinking their review policy, and they haven't sent me anything for months. (It's a pity, too, because I can't find several of their books in my local gaming stores, Book of Hell and Book of the Planes being two I've been particularly looking for.) I guess I'm "on hold" as far as review copies of Mongoose books are concerned.

 

[tonym]

Hey...
Your first post, John.
Welcome to EN World!


Tony M