D20 Dragon Lords of Melnibone?

[Teflon Billy]

...I like it, although one of the reviewers I trust the most (Psion / Alan Kohler) hates it. The reality is the game rules in said book are moderate to poor, but I love the setting so much that it blinds me.

I agree with both Hound and Psion here...Psion, in that it sucks as a rulebook;Hound in that the setting is awesome.

I bought it. I regret the purchase.

I don't regret the Purchase of Stormbringer, the actual Chaosium game.

 

[trancejeremy]

IMHO, the best version of the game is the orignal Stormbringer (though it's not even remotely balanced - one PC can be a Melnibonean, another can be a peasant). Especially find the Games Workshop hardcover - the art in it is fantastic.

(By comparison, the art in DLOM and Elric/Stormbringer is awful. Really really awful)

Anyway, the DLOM rules were a lousy conversion from BRP to d20. They were too literal. Things like the Demon Summoning rules in Elric which were somewhat too easy, are now too costly in d20.

In BRP/Elric, it cost magic points to summon demons and a few Power points to bind them. Magic points refreshed every day, and Power points weren't very hard to regain, either.

In DLOM, it costs experience simply to summon a demon, and it costs several ability points (permanently!) to bind them.

The rules part aside, the background info on the setting is okay (though it's identical to what's in the Elric game)

 

[Alzrius]

Not having played Chaosium's Elric! game, but having bought and read through Dragonlords of Melnibone I can safely say that the latter was indeed awful. It was good for a synopsis of the books, but other than that...it wasn't very well done at all.

I have a sneaking suspicion, given the half-finished rules and the full-pages advertizement in the back, that Chaosium made this just to try and lure d20 players into trying out their Elric! game.

 

[GILGAMESH]

The Chaosium Elric was awsome. But I haven't picked up the D20 yet. I've paged thru it at a local store but I haven't scrounge up the dough. I will probably buy it just for the whole Elric thing. You can never have enough Elric!

 

[Mouseferatu]

Gotta go with the majority here. Setting good. Rules execution awful. I don't just mean "They made mistakes" bad. I mean "It looks like they couldn't be bothered to try to lear or understand the system at all" bad. Races that give +1 stat modifiers, just for instance. And that's just off the top of my head on a book I read when it first came out, almost two years ago. The entire book has that sort of shaky rules understanding.

I like Elric and the setting (though I'm not as big a fan as some), but I honestly can't recommend spending money for this book unless you can find it used for half cost or less. If that.

 

[Necrobeer]

Yes, plenty of bugs. Though the NPC section had some amusing skills listed.

 

[Graf]

Don't buy it. I'd say more but Eric's grandmom is around. Suffice to say that it was a lame attempt to make money and little more. Which is weird because the publisher isn't actually one of those follow-the-pack d20 published.

(To give a better example of the bad rules mouseferatu mentioned
The Demon summoning rules refer to stats that don't exist in d20, without explaination.
The monster stats are even worse.

The book is litterally a straight cut-and-paste job with absurdly poor editing.

 

[Voadam]

The demon summoning rules are way to expensive on xp and stat costs for what you get.

The feat for pikeman is poor IMO but it is one of the most used pieces of OGC.

 

[blackshirt5]

Yikes! Looks like I'm not ordering it. Thanx for the heads up guys.

 

[blackshirt5]

STUPID DOUBLE POSTS!!!! YEARGH!