Dogs of War: Series 1 - Issue 1

[JoeGKushner]

Dogs of War, a new series by Mystic Eye Games, brings unusual NPCs into the game. This release brings us Trelise Hellstormer and Ogu-Ky. The former is a half fiend two headed troll while the latter is a half medusa harpy. Each is written up with extra class levels and provides a wide variety of uses for the character.

Each character starts right off the bat with background and then goes into adventure hooks. One nice touch was the Use in Bluffside and Use in Gothos. The stats at various levels allow the GM to get more use out of the creature than if you just got one stack block and had to modify it from there. For example, Trelise Hellstormer is presented as a base half fiend two-headed troll, allowing you to save some time if you just want a generic stat block, as well latter adding levels of barbarian and wizard.

After the monster description, you get the crunchy bits that went into making the monster. This is useful if you want to see some of the base information like in this case, what exactly a two-haded troll's base stats are prior to modification with the template or see the spells that the creature uses.

Another enjoyable part is the design notes. While not everyone is going to want to see these, I find it nice to see what the writer was thinking when he went into the design process and why certain things were chosen. Another nice thing is it usually identifies where the OGC material has come from even as it reprints it in for ease of use.

Just so that there's not confusion, it's important to note that the OGC doesn't limit itself merely to spells or monster blocks, but also templates like the half medusa and prestige classes like the shadow mage, taken from the Assassin's Handbook.

The book is full color using dual columns. One thing that would've went a long way in providing more utility would be providing different illustrations for the characters as they grow in power levels. What's the difference in how Trelise looks when she's merely a half-fiend two headed troll as opposed to a powerful wizard half fiend two headed troll? Speaking from the review copy, I don't know if you can get a black and white text only version for ease of printing. Something I strongly believe that all PDF's should have.

Part of the problem with this series is that it has competition of the worst sort. Free, online, official competition. http://www.wizards.com/dnd/archive.asp?x=dnd/cc,3 is the archive of the Wizards Personality Spotlight and you get a wide variety of monsters and characters of various levels with different abilities. The main benefits of this book over these free samples is that it's in full color and uses a wide variety of OGC, which allows a greater degree of specialization and freedom than the official material can match.

A lesser problem is utility. Why do we get the half medusa OGC material reprinted here, which is online, but not the half fiend? [a]http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/monsters/halfmedusa.html[/a]

In addition, since Freeport is OGC from the original modules, and is in place in Gothos, why not a section on using these characters there? Next question, since the d20 license is more than just fantasy, how about a section on using it in other genres?

The Dogs of War is off to a good start by providing a good mix of OGC and a variety in the characters it presents but has to move beyond saving the GM time and increase the utility of the format and the information.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Sorry folks, for some reason the last bits got cut off. Here they go:
half medusa

In addition, since Freeport is OGC from the original modules, and is in place in Gothos, why not a section on using these characters there? Next question, since the d20 license is more than just fantasy, how about a section on using it in other genres?

The Dogs of War is off to a good start by providing a good mix of OGC and a variety in the characters it presents but has to move beyond merely saving some GM time and increase the utility of the format and the information.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

In volume one you will get two NPCs created with great depth and using complex templates and class combinations to make the most challenging enemies your PCs are likely to ever face.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Glenn Dean, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack

Sizing up the Target
Dogs of War: Series I, Issue I: Trelise Hellstormer & Ogu-Ky is a 16 page PDF product written by Charles Plemmons and published by Mystic Eye Games. This color, illustrated product retails for $2.50.

First Blood
Mystic Eye Games’ Dogs of War series is designed to provide Games Masters with intricate, detailed, unusual NPCs to give their players some interesting opponents. This first release in the series provides two: Trelise Hellstormer, a female half-fiend two-headed troll barbarian/wizard, and Ogu-Ky, a female harpy-medusa bard/assassin.

Now, lest you think these characters are just wacky combinations of templates, let me tell you the entire package. Each NPC is fully developed with a detailed history, stats for several challenge ratings and character levels (Trelise Hellstormer at CR 8, 13, and 18; Ogu-Ky at CR 9,14, and 19), adventure hooks based on the character’s back story, campaign notes for use in Bluffside and Gothos campaigns, plus the game mechanics that support the NPCs.

Dogs of War makes judicious use of the Open Game License. Trelise Hellstormer is built from the two-headed troll in Tome of Horrors, plus the half-fiend template, plus three spells from Spells & Spellcraft (Fantasy Flight) and Spells & Magic (Bastion Press). Ogu-Ky is built using Sean K. Reynolds’ half-medusa template, plus the Shadow Mage Prestige Class from The Assassin’s Handbook (Green Ronin) and the pestilence weapon special ability from Arms & Armor (Bastion Press). If you don’t have these crunchy bits, don’t fret – they’re all included for you, along with the author’s design notes.

Critical Hits
Dogs of War is the Open Game License at its best. Finally, you can pick up a product that makes extensive use of a wide variety of OGC sources to pull together an interesting product. Best of all, if you like what you see, you get the specific crunchy bits you want right there. MEG has done great work in bringing all these pieces together accurately, with artwork, thorough editing, and the author’s notes there for all to see.

Critical Misses
I have to admit, when I first skimmed this product I thought: “$2.50 for two NPCs? What are they thinking? What a rip off!” I might still be thinking that, if I hadn’t sat down and figured out how long it would take me to create one of these NPCs, complete with background, from multiple sources and at three different challenge ratings – and ultimately decided I’m paying $1.25 to save me three hours work each. Not a bad exchange, that.

I do take fault with the Shadow Mage Prestige Class – way over the top in terms of spell-like ability and spellcasting, with virtually no sacrifice (3 measly ranks of Knowledge (arcana) required) – but that note probably belongs as much in The Assassin’s Handbook review as here. The NPC is still usable at the two lower CRs without the prestige class.

Coup de Grace
MEG provides Dogs of War with all the crunchy bits as Open Content (sporting of them, considering that none of it is their own). The mechanics work well together, providing a couple of killer NPCs with relevant game mechanics at a cheap price. The product takes a small hit for focus – it’s a GM product – and originality. You could do the work yourself – none of the mechanics are new – but MEG has done a nice job of doing it for you.

To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to Fast Tracks at www.d20zines.com.

 

[GameWyrd]

Dogs of War series 1/volume 1 is short and to the point. You know, a bit like a pitbull or perhaps a particularly ferocious terrier. Since half-breeds seem to be the flavour of the month, both the NPCs in the download are, perhaps that should be short and to the point - like a pit terrier.

Short and to the point means 16 pages, $2.50 and two NPCs. The two NPCs are used to hang a bunch of other stuff off, templates, prestige classes and spells. It’s the usual d20 fodder. Some of this – not an insignificant chunk either – isn’t new. Author Charles W. Plemons III has collected bits and pieces from the OGL that seemed to interest him and has put them together in a way that’s designed to interest us. Contributing books include Tome of Horrors, Spells & Spellcraft, Spells & Magic, The Assassin’s Handbook, Arms & Armor as well as contributions from Sean K Reynolds. You don’t need any of these books to use Dogs of War; it’s the other way around, buy Dogs of War and get bits of these books with your download. It’s heavy use of the OGL.

The first of the two ugly NPCs is Trelise Hellstromer – a female half-fiend two-headed troll. We have her picture, her story and her stats. The idea is you can pick her up and put her into your game. We’ve got extra advice if your game just happens to be set in Gothos or Bluffside – the two campaign worlds supported by Mystic Eye. You have most of this three times over, stats and game meal (background, motivation, appearance) for Trelise in three stages of her life, Trelise at three different Challenge Ratings. We’ve a Monster Manual style entry for Two-Headed trolls and if a Two-Headed troll character tempts you there are attribute adjustments too (but no ECL). We finish with a bunch of new spells and the designer’s notes. They’re not new spells, of course, nor are the rules for Two-Headed Trolls new either, they’re just probably new to you and are examples of how Dogs of War 1/1 makes good use of open gaming content resources.

The second NPC is Ogu-Ky – a female half-medusa harpy. We’ve got her picture, her story and her stats again. As with the troll, her stats and motivations are done three times for different points her life, different CRs and quite different character classes too. Ogu-Ky begins as a bard and finishes up as a Shadow Mage prestige-class (Bard/Assassin/Shadow Mage). The whole prestige class is printed here.

Dogs of War uses plenty of colour. The text is printed on a background of weathered parchment, the stat blocks appear on different background colours; shades of green for the first (and weakest) version of the NPC, then yellow and then red. It’s a good idea but it doesn’t scale up very well. When Acrobat opens up my copy of Dogs of War 1/1 on my computer screen (and appreciate there are different screen sizes and settings, but mine aren’t uncommon) the background is too pixelated. The corners of the comment boxes suffer quite badly.

A product this size is unlikely to wow. There’s just not enough room to come up with an inspiration idea and build it into a winner. Dogs of War, if the series continues like this, are likely to be either a hit or a miss. If you find the NPCs interesting then the download will work for you and it’ll be nice and cheap too. On the other hand, if the NPCs just fail to grab your attention, then it’s an easy to ignore supplement and a couple of bucks down the drain. I really wasn’t tempted very much by either of these two ugly ladies but I did enjoy reading their backgrounds. I was also interested to see how the author brought bits and pieces together from all over the d20 world. Dogs of War 1/1 has benefited from being something a little new. That’ll probably wear thin for Dogs of War 1/2 but we’ve been promised something bigger and nastier for that.

* This Dogs of War s1/v1 review was first published at GameWyrd.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

It's nice to see somebody really putting Open Gaming to work.