Brotherhood of the Spider

[Messageboard Golem]

These are the warriors who are willing to do what is ever is needed to face off the female tyranny of the Drow society and bring it down to it knees. This four page d20 fantasy Prestige Class PDF called the Brotherhood of the Spider, written by Brian-Joseph Baker, is an easy-to-integrate PC class and just the sort of thing needed for DMs to add depth to any great d20 fantasy campaign world and gaming session

 

[Crothian]

Brotherhood of the Spider

The PDF market has really allowed the production and writings of things that would not normally see print, or at least on their own. Brotherhood of the Spider is a very small PDF that would make an addition to a larger book in the print side of things. But since PDFs are sent electronically they can be smaller and cheaper.

Brotherhood of the Spider is a four page PDF. The font is a little on the small side and the book is written in a three column format instead of the traditional two column that is seen in most products. The PDF is a bit over 400 kilobytes in size making it a good size for people with slow connections to download it. There are no bookmarks in the product. However, since it is not that big it is really easy to find things. The art in the book is pretty basic. Basically there is a piece on the first page in blue and some the headings of sections and a table is also done in the same color blue.

The meat of the product is a prestige class, Brotherhood of the Spider. It’s an evil prestige class that opposes Lolth. It is not Drow specific but has heavy leanings toward the Drow race with history and concept. Brian Joseph Baker is the writer and he does a good job of providing a rich history and purpose to this class. The product starts with the history and the events that lead up to the class’s creation. It is well defined but simple enough to add into a campaigns history as a discovery the players make or are told about. It could easily have been covered up for instance and few realize they exist.

The class is a five level prestige class that allows the person to gain a bit of abilities. The class is not easy to get into needed 10 ranks in 4 skills, certain stats in abilities, and a specific number of levels in fighter. The attribute requirements and the levels of fighter are an odd type of requirement for a prestige class that some people like myself are not a big fan of. They seem a little clumsy as requirements but they do work. The abilities of the prestige class are pretty good: Good HD, decent skill points and class skills, saves are good and not of the usually progression, base attack bonus is also not of the usual progression, and many class abilities.

Over all this is a decent product if one is using Lolth or her minion in their game. The history of the class is well written up and can add some very good plot elements into the game. The class itself is a little bit unorthodox in some of the progressions and requirements.

 

[johnsemlak]

Does this product mention Lloth specifically? Isn't that not in the SRD?

 

[Styrovore]

It's against the "Priesthood of Lolth", not Lloth.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

A buck for ONE prestige class?

PDF Inflation at it's worst, IMO. For the price of 5 to 10 of these classes from this publisher, you can buy a book of 20-40 classes from other publishers.

 

[Matbs]

What annoyed me about the batch of PrCs offered by Louis Porter, Jr. Design is that they´re all based on superheroes: This one is modelled after Spider Man, and the others are Green Lantern (the Emerald Magistrate), Batman (the Dark Avenger), Captain America (Defender of the Realm), and the Hulk (Dreadnought), with obvious takes on Thor and the Torch coming up. Since I certainly won´t use any of those in my campaign (not because I got anything against superheroes, but because I feel they would be quite silly in a fantasy RPG. A guy throwing his shield and doing more damage than a raging high lvl. barbarian with a greataxe? Aw, c´mon!), it would have been nice if somebody had mentioned that before I bought them. So, if you´re uncomfortable with the idea of Spidey-drow and the Hulk running amuck in your campaign, consider yourself warned.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

The document has numerous OGL violations which has been brought to the attention of LPJ. Supposedly, they will be corrected. This includes direct references to Underdark and Lolth (which is PI under the Forgotten Realms series).

 

[Khur]

Brotherhood of the Spider is part of the Devil's Workshop Lost Classes PDF line of single prestige classes. This particular class was penned by Brian-Joseph Baker. The PDF has three pages of usable game material (with any other pages taken by the OGL), with a single illustration by Jason Walton.

The art and design of the document is good. It's slick-looking. Unfortunately, while they're nice, gamers aren't paying for looks.

Despite an attempt (like other Lost Classes) to mimic a superhero icon (this time Spiderman), the whole of this class is very poorly written. The fact that it doesn't really follow the Player's Handbook structure of other classes in the Lost Classes series is actually irrelevant. Official prestige classes don’t follow that structure either.

Firstly, the history is not just crafted poorly, it's unbelievable, hinging on the fact that a male drow dissident (to the Church of Lolth) is banished from a drow city. Drow priestesses don't banish those who question their authority; they kill such persons…gruesomely. This history also relies upon Wizards of the Coast's intellectual property, such as the Underdark, the structure of drow society, and a clear OGL violation--the use of Lolth.

The class itself has requirements that seem to have been given little thought, most of which seem to have no bearing on the class's abilities and no relevance to the aforementioned history. Brotherhood of the Spider even goes so far as to require very high Strength and Dexterity scores along with a minimum level in fighter. The ability requirement is poor craft, but the level requirement is simply a prestige class design no-no. Considering this latter 5-level requirement, the skill requirements insure that very few characters will ever be able to take this class without serious multiclassing (the easiest of which is about 7 levels of monk). Of course, all members of the Brotherhood must be drow, but not necessarily male.

If this weren't bad enough, the class abilities of the Botherhood lack professional development as well. In five levels, a brother gets +2 to Str, +2 to Dex (no bonus type indicated for either), ability to climb (20 ft. climb move), shoot webbing (very powerful webbing), to jump 50 ft. (Jump DC 15), a danger sense (immune to sneak attacks, Spot DC 10 to pinpoint danger), and a poison bite (static DC, low damage). The only limitations on any of these abilities are a couple of skill checks indicated above.

Finally, more crippling to Brotherhood of the Spider is its price. Even I, a champion of the incredible entertainment value roleplaying games and supplements provide for their prices, cannot see paying a dollar each for prestige classes. EN Publishing's Librum Equitis Compiled contains 50 classes. Would you pay $50.00 for it?

Let this Lost Class remain lost.

 

[Beholder Bob]

The Brotherhood of the Spider: at first glance it is well made. The PDF is cleanly arranged (though expensive, $1 for 1 prestige class!) and easy to read through. The initial section details the history of the prestige class - giving the DM several hooks to place it in a game as well as points to anchor it to an ongoing campaign. Immediately, though, is a break into non-open content. Lolth is not open content - this does not prevent the purchaser from using it, of course, but obviously the author either did not respect the OGC license or was ignorant of it. This does not bode well.

Crunch wise: powers gained are too much! This 5 level class gains a stat point at every level but 5th! In addition: unlimited web use, spider climb, 50' jumps, web swinging, danger sense, and poisonous bite! This class gains far too much for even considering it in a serious game. The designer obviously is not familiar with the concept of balance - creating an uber-class of obscene proportion. In addition is full attack progression, 4 skill points per level, and 2 good saves. Of note: the designer failed to use standard save progression as well. Crunch wise - it fails on every level. Overpowered to the nth degree - it doesn't even apply the save mechanics properly.

The pre-req's for this class are poor!

1) It is race specific but fails to not it in bold in standard format. It is possible to miss this little nugget as it was not included with other such data! From the description, it implies angry males - but this class is open to female drow as well. Is this intended - or an error of omission.
2) It requires 5 levels fighter. Not base attack. No flexibility. No explanation either. Several classes fit the theme very well, including monk
3) It requires 10 ranks in: climb, balance, knowledge religion, move silently. This requires multi-classing to achieve or feats to make the non-class skills available as class skills.

Theme wise: it is spiderman - with a poisonous bite. Why? A drow superhero? The superhero flavor is so strong it is impossible to ignore - and makes this class useless to all but a few who wish to have a Drow 'Spidey' swinging into their game. At the very least, the author should have included Electro, Doc Octopus, and the Green Goblin to keep this overpowered, poorly written, silly class in line.

Do not buy this product - but if you do, get some aspirin to go with it.

 

[GameWyrd]

The Brotherhood of the Spider is a stocking filler. It's an impulse buy. At $0.99 the PDF is way below the minimum checkout value for RPGNow and you need to throw it into your electronic cart along with something else.

If you're tossing The Brotherhood of the Spider into your electronic cart then it's most likely it's going in beside and after another d20 product. For your 99c you're getting a bit of flavour text and a 5 level prestige class. One and a third pages of the four page PDF is taken up by the OGL legal foo. If this review goes on much longer then it's in danger of being longer then the product.

The Brotherhood of the Spider begins with a fantasy story. It's the sort of thing which might be found cut into pieces and placed around a larger product. When you whack this sort of RPG flavour text together and put it down as one story then it's very easy to see just how cheesy it is! Here we get what might well be a background to the author's favourite character or NPC. We read about an outcast Drow who makes a deal with a scary power, sets up The Brotherhood of the Spider and manages to hang on in there in one Underdark city. It's not very original but it's quite Drow and shouldn't confuse the players.

We are, of course, dealing with Forgotten Realm-esq Drow. That'll suit most people. The Forgotten Realm angle is also essential to the concept. We need to have the "Lolthian Priestesses" and the matriarchal structure for the background to the prestige class to work. You really need some excuse to make a male spider priest exclusive to justify the mechanics.

The prestige class is exclusive. It's hard to qualify for; you need Dex and Str of 16. You're going to then get further boosts to Dex and Str as you progress up the levels. You'll have both at 18 after four levels in this class. In addition to this the Brother will pick up a web ability, an impressive jump and a danger sense. He gets a webbed, red and blue latex suit and battles the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus. Oh, okay, I made that last bit up but the Brotherhood of the Spider certainly does remind me of Spiderman. I suppose this is to be expected though - what else would a fantasy spider powered warrior be like?

There's no reason to go out and buy The Brotherhood of the Spider. On the other hand if you happen to be buying PDF support for an Underdark campaign then there's no reason not to succumb to the impulse urge and toss this PDF into your basket. At 99c you'll either be impressed at the value for money and useful prestige class or you'll forget about it entirely.

* This Brotherhood of the Spider review was first published at GameWyrd.