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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 2009591" data-attributes="member: 2013">The Book of Vile Darkness is a supplement covering evil in a D&D campaign published by Wizards of the Coast.Notes: This review was based on my spending a couple of afternoons at my FLGS going through this book and taking notes for the review.  I did not purchase the book, and do not have it here for reference when writing my review, so it is possible that due to bad notes or a poor memory, some of my quotes/statements of the material contained in the book are erroneous.Percent of OGC: 0%First Impressions: I had really high expectations when I heard about this book.  As I heard more and more rumors about the content, however, I became increasingly nonplussed.  When I received a "preview" of the material in Dragon #300, I was doubly non-plussed, and lowered my expectations further - to the point where the only thing I really was looking forward to out of this was the Demon Lords and Archdevils included therein.  When I saw it in my FLGS, I tried to approach it with the same positive expectations I had when I first heard about it.  Unfortunately, this book was even worse than my WORST expectations would have prepared me for.  The presentation of this book, like most other WotC books, is top-notch.  Monte Cook's writing is tactful and surprisingly well-done.  The problem is that the "meat" of the book is extremely poorly done, and no amount of slick packaging can cover for the taste that leaves in your mind.Initial Annoyances: The "Warning: Mature Content" sticker on the front is annoying, and those who will want to purchase this should do so ASAP and remove that darn thing before it mucks up the cover.  Bad idea to put those on.  The second thing that struck me is that a casual flip-through of the book to check out the artwork tells me that "vile darkness" can be summed up in three themes: body piercing, skin peeled away to expose flesh and bone, and mammary glands (popularly known as "boobies!").  Let's just say I found this peurile at best and leave it at that.  While I can't fault the technical work on most of the art (the body piercings and boobies DO look well-drawn), I will take issue with the gratuitousness of the subject matter.Chapter one is the best of the chapters... the book starts out fairly strongly, but it's all downhill.  We are treated to a quote from the PHB - "Good and evil are not just philosophies in the D&D world.  They are actual forces that shape the cosmos."   It's a good reminder that at the end of the day, D&D is a game of moral absolutes - in the D&D universe, there are some things that are intrinsically evil, whether we like to believe that or not - you can't spin them or explain them through circumstance to make them good.  An enumeration of acts that are defined as "evil" in a "standard" D&D game is put forth - in addition to things such as "murder" we have things such as lying, animating the dead, and casting spells with the Evil descriptor - things a lot of players may want to spin.  There IS a section on including "relative" morality in a D&D game but it notes that this creates some real problems (e.g., if two paladins with different ethos both use detect evil, what does it detect?).  This is NOT going to be a popular chapter with those players - especially who play paladins - that try to get away with these sorts of things (LOL - "Just because you call them a blasphemer doesn't mean you can run your sword through everyone!").  Also addressed are treating evil in a campaign and more specifically, creating an evil villain.  The book then spends the rest of the time trying to open up mechanics addressing the means to the end of evil.Chapter two is still fairly good - there are rules for possessions (excellent), diseases (good), curses (fair), and sacrifices (poor) here.  Unlike other areas of the BoVD, these sections (specifically the disease section) make good use of the "icky" factor - diseases are not pleasant, and they are not treated that way.  The rules on possessions are very well done and the rules on curses and sacrifices are kind of so-so.  The curses tend to play a little too much to the "gross-out" factor, while the sacrifices are of dubious mechanical interest (mostly relying on a Knowledge-religion check - a bad idea as it suggests that a 20th-level character with maxxed ranks will derive as much or more benefit from sacrificing a small rabbit as a 1st-level character would from sacrificing a willing virgin in a day-long ceremony on an altar in front of thousands of worshippers) and certainly do not seem to provide enough power to the BBEG (that's Big Bad Evil Guy) to be worth the while.  Making sacrifices' efficacy dependent on Knowledge: Religion is simply a bad idea that leads to poor game balance.  The "corrupt spell components" suffer even more greatly from mechanical problems.  I expect to see this level of work (and have seen it) from third-party publishers, and it's not obviously bad, so I won't take too much umbrage with it.Chapter three is where the book seemed to slide of the cliff for me.  The section on poisons is good and useful.  The rest of the chapter is awful.  Rules for torture devices and executions are introduced that work very hard to steer clear of that nasty little "bug" in the D&D system known as "hit points."  Very disappointing.  Profession: Executioner is beyond broken, as all you have to do is wander around with an axe and a buddy who is good at grappling (or hold spells) to pin your victim and you can bypass such annoying things as high AC and high Hit Points.  Just get your buddy to grapple and pin the opponent and make a skill roll in Profession: Executioner to beat DC 18 (note that a first level character with maxxed ranks and Skill Focus already has a +6 before his ability bonus is even contemplated - that's a 40% chance of instant kill regardless of hp or AC of opponent).  Instead of worrying about BAB, people will worry about Ranks in Profession - after all, you're only shooting for 18.  And if you *miss*, you "only" get a coup de grace anyway.  This is SEVERELY broken.  Also disappointing are the representations of the obvious - torture someone and you do some damage and you can get a bonus to your Intimidate check.  Any DM that hasn't Rule-Zeroed that one into his campaign already flat out isn't thinking.  The entire section on execution and torture was, IMO, in very poor taste (note: I didn't say that including such a section was in poor taste, I said that this treatment was in poor taste) both from a style standpoint and, more importantly, from a mechanical standpoint.  Ugh.Chapter four is even worse (if that can be imagined) - we get Feats such as Willing Deformity, wherein the character mutilates himself to gain a bonus to Intimidate Checks (whatever happened to Skill Focus - Intimidate, I wonder)?  The mechanical effect of the Feat is identical to SF: Intimidate (except that it is the prerequisite for some of the other Feats).  Why not use SF: Intimidate?  If the mechanical effects are the same, the Feat is the same, flavor text notwithstanding.  The obvious addition to the d20 rule-set - a Feat that allows metamagicking of Spell-Like Abilities - is the only Feat worth a darn here.  The most useless Feat, IMO, is the one (Corrupt Spell?) that changes half your energy damage from a spell into "vile energy" damage.  Just think, kids, instead of lightning bolt doing 8d6 electrical damage, you can have a lightning bolt that does 4d6 electrical damage and 4d6 vile electrical damage (BTW, creatures immune to or resistant to electricity are just as immune to/resistant to vile electricity).  What does vile damage do?  Well, you have to work to find it, as it is not all that obvious, but there is a little paragraph that tells you that vile damage cannot be healed - naturally or magically - unless the character is within a "consecrate" or "hallow" spell.  This also seems VERY broken to me, though it is a tradeoff that makes evil more powerful "now."Chapter five - the Prestige Classes - is of less interest than Chapter four.  Let's just say I found these classes so uninspiring, I have no notes of them and an abiding wish that I had never wasted my time looking at them.  Nothing here said, "great villain class for X" to me.  Instead, I was left completely nonplussed.Chapter six covers magic.  Great chapter if you're interested in spells that deal with blood, vermin, and semen (both with and without the fiendish template).  Other than that, nothing interesting to see here.  The spells in Dragon #300 actually rank among the BEST spells you'll find here.  Bodily fluids aren't evil, they're just icky.Chapter seven covers the long-awaited Demon Lords and Archdevils.  This one was going to disappoint people no matter how they did it - some want non-epic DLs and ADs, some want them epic, some want them deific.  Put me in whatever boat allows them to grant spells - something which they cannot do (explain again, then, why they have worshipers?) and which strikes me as problematic. The power level here is barely epic, and there is what feels like a "concession" paragraph telling the DM to just give them a Divine Rank 1 if he so desires, but "it really doesn't change much."  What a cop-out.  The Demon Lords are written up to a decent standard, though nothing we didn't see over a year ago with Scott Greene's Creature Catalogue site here on ENWorld.  The Archdevils, OTOH, were a huge disappointment to me based on one thing - the prevailing paradigm that every new edition of D&D requires a re-shuffling of the pantheon (including the denizens of Hell).  Gone is Moloch, enter the Hag Countess.  Gone is Geryon, enter Levistus.  Gone is Baalzebul the man, instead we have Baalzebul the slug.  Awful.  Changes were not needed nor wanted (at least by me).  And for goodness' sake, drop the Blood War already, Planescapers notwithstanding.  There is nothing here that I hadn't seen well over a year ago from Scott, and they seem to have made changes for the sake of change.  Major deduction in points there.  Suffice to say that the "Archdukes" we got in Legions of Hell were done up a whole lot better than this crew.  And can someone please explain why Asmodeus' actions (wiping out the other archdukes, then re-instating most of them except the Moloch and then arbitrarily wiping off his loyal cohort, Geryon) are classed as Lawful?  Randomly killing and reinstating your followers, as well as offing your loyal allies, seems more like the actions of a Chaotic to me.Chapter eight returns a few of the devils/demons/undead from the past with a few new ones.  This chapter was okay; I was happy to see the return of the Spawn of Kyuss and the Eye of Fear and Flame to the D&D canon.Finally. a few paragraphs are devoted to running an "evil PCs" game.  It explicitly mentions that this book is not meant to glorify evil.  I'll say.  If I was considering running an evil character, I would NOT be looking to this book for ideas outside of the hideously broken Profession: Executioner (I give up THIS MUCH for THAT LITTLE!?!  WHAT?!?  I'm gonna go join the good guys - the power profit margins are better).  To echo Henry @ Home's review - this book does not go far enough... not in pushing the "yuck" envelope, but in terms of granting power.  I thought the point of evil was "lots of power now, worse payout later."  There's not even the "lots of power now" here to make things attractive - especially to "munchkins" (again, except for Profession: Executioner).Production: Technically solid, but unfortunately seems to rely on the "piercings and boobies" theme mentioned above to set to mood.  Gah.Conclusion:  Underwhelming and overhyped.  It's nicely packaged, and Monte Cook did the best he could with a poor situation (I actually feel kind of sorry for him), but the content here is astoundingly subpar.  If you can't wait to get your hands on demon sperm (spells), this book is for you (hope you note the satire of the BoVD hype there).  If you are desparate to see the Archdevils and Demon Lords, I guess this book is for you.  Otherwise, this book is a colossal waste.  The subject matter covered *IS* appropriate to some D&D games, but this treatment of it, while tactful, also managed to grossly butcher it - the treatment of the subject matter was poor (not tactless, though).  You could distill all of the "good parts" into a 16-page book.  Definitely nowhere near the $33 cover price in value.  This one is appalling not as a kneejerk to "its subject matter is icky", but rather because despite the tactful and thoughtful writing by Monte Cook, the mechanical treatment of the subject matter was horrid... and because a lot of the stuff here seemed gratuitous and unneccesary.  I think once the hype of "wow, it's EVIL" wears off and people get the chance to examine the meat of what's in here, they will be as disappointed as I was.  AEG's "Evil" and Mongoose's "Demonology: The Dark Road" did a MUCH more compelling job (for me) with much of the same subject matter and the two of them together are roughly the same price as the BoVD.  This product had so much potential - but there's nothing worse than unused potential, and that's all this book is.  UPON FURTHER REVIEW: Upon further review, the book in fact did in fact address most (not all) of my initial concerns.  But it raised even more problems.  The rules for executions are *horrifically* broken as they completely sidestep two of the most fundamental rules of the game - AC and hp - and in the process make it laughably easy to kill powerful things.  The rules for sacrfices are broken (to a lesser degree, though).  Vile damage?  Probably broken.  Re-reading the book solved a couple of problems but in doing so brought up even more problems.  The content itself probably is deserving of a two, but the more-broken-than-ground-glass mechanics barely merit a one.  Overall, then, I have to let my initial grade of a "1" stand, though it is a "high" 1 - and on the borderline of "2".--The SigilOctober 19, 2002Edit: Attempted to clean up some of the ranting to leave a more analytical review.  Edit 2: Changed a few names to accurately reflect the contents of the book, added discussions of Profession: Executioner, Vile Damage, and why Asmodeus is not Lawful Evil.  Added the "Upon Further Review" Section.</blockquote>

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