JoeGKushner
Adventurer
The Dogs of War howl again and this time, it's with Brianna, a amethyst crystalline half-elf psion and Versillion, a serpentine red-belly snakeman.
The first one, Brianna, hails from a small village of half-elves who devote their time and energy to mastering not only psioinics, but also the crystals that they use, becoming something more than flesh and blood, as represented by the Crystalline Template. During her adventurers, she robs mages until captured by one and tortured by him. When she escapes, she's a changed being and enters into the Mage Hunter PrC. All of that crunchy material is provided as well as several new spells and design notes. Because she uses the Mage Hunter PrC, we also get new domains, Murder and Poison.
The second one, Versillion, is the scion of a powerful snakeman warlord who fell in battle in the war with the lizardmen for control of the swamps. Now I've always enjoyed snakemen as they have the potential to add on or take the place of the official Yuan-Ti and this character is no exception.
His history shows him rising through the ranks of his peers, a red-belly who was born serpentine, his lineage is clear and his connection with his god makes him more than just a mere barbarian, but a barbarian-cleric with not one, but two templates applied to him. As written, he's probably one of the more dangerous types of villains because he's a fallen leader who seeks to regain that power he once had and woe to the player's who run into him.
In terms of crunch, we get a new deity, a new domain, serpent, new feat, poison use, and the snakeman monster, which includes not only challenge rating but effective character level and stat modifications. In addition, the serpentine creature template and the spitter template are included This doesn't include the new spells or weapon special abilities, creature detecting and roguefriend.
But how useful are these characters? Each character comes with three versions, a weak, average and strong. Each includes adventure hooks. Each character comes with Dog Packs or ideas on how to use them with other characters in the series. I found this useful as a campaign can only contain so many mega-foes without them bumping into each other. By adding potential ties with other books, it takes a little work out of it for the GM and makes the series more campaign like in utility as you can now link different characters from the series.
Another useful thing that each includes is use in different settings, Gothos, Bluffside and Freeport. I can't speak for other fans but I appreciate the fact that there is at least one publisher who continues to support the idea of Freeport. Like the second issue, this one also includes a Break the Mold where the author provides brief ideas on how to use these characters in other genres like Moder, Horror, Sci-Fi and Super Hero. Last mentioned, but not least, is the section on Raising the Stakes where the author provides some ideas on what type of companions or allies these characters would have with them. Useful in that once again, it gives the GM more than just a single character to use.
In terms of utility, the book has a separate section for printer friendly stat blocks that includes the different power levels and general background information but doesn't list out all of the OGC goodies used to character the characters.
In terms of formatting, they've removed the different colored backgrounds for the different levels and in my opinion, this works well with the text. About the only thing they have to watch now is the formatting covering the page numbers or breaking past the scrolled look in the various subsections like the Use in.
As with previous books, the greatest threat to this product remains free NPCs from the official source via the Wizards of the Coast site. This doesn't count the printed books devoted to NPCs, both official and unofficial.
Dogs of War continues to be a good source not only for NPCs with variable CRs, but also OGC chocked full of crunch and ideas.
The first one, Brianna, hails from a small village of half-elves who devote their time and energy to mastering not only psioinics, but also the crystals that they use, becoming something more than flesh and blood, as represented by the Crystalline Template. During her adventurers, she robs mages until captured by one and tortured by him. When she escapes, she's a changed being and enters into the Mage Hunter PrC. All of that crunchy material is provided as well as several new spells and design notes. Because she uses the Mage Hunter PrC, we also get new domains, Murder and Poison.
The second one, Versillion, is the scion of a powerful snakeman warlord who fell in battle in the war with the lizardmen for control of the swamps. Now I've always enjoyed snakemen as they have the potential to add on or take the place of the official Yuan-Ti and this character is no exception.
His history shows him rising through the ranks of his peers, a red-belly who was born serpentine, his lineage is clear and his connection with his god makes him more than just a mere barbarian, but a barbarian-cleric with not one, but two templates applied to him. As written, he's probably one of the more dangerous types of villains because he's a fallen leader who seeks to regain that power he once had and woe to the player's who run into him.
In terms of crunch, we get a new deity, a new domain, serpent, new feat, poison use, and the snakeman monster, which includes not only challenge rating but effective character level and stat modifications. In addition, the serpentine creature template and the spitter template are included This doesn't include the new spells or weapon special abilities, creature detecting and roguefriend.
But how useful are these characters? Each character comes with three versions, a weak, average and strong. Each includes adventure hooks. Each character comes with Dog Packs or ideas on how to use them with other characters in the series. I found this useful as a campaign can only contain so many mega-foes without them bumping into each other. By adding potential ties with other books, it takes a little work out of it for the GM and makes the series more campaign like in utility as you can now link different characters from the series.
Another useful thing that each includes is use in different settings, Gothos, Bluffside and Freeport. I can't speak for other fans but I appreciate the fact that there is at least one publisher who continues to support the idea of Freeport. Like the second issue, this one also includes a Break the Mold where the author provides brief ideas on how to use these characters in other genres like Moder, Horror, Sci-Fi and Super Hero. Last mentioned, but not least, is the section on Raising the Stakes where the author provides some ideas on what type of companions or allies these characters would have with them. Useful in that once again, it gives the GM more than just a single character to use.
In terms of utility, the book has a separate section for printer friendly stat blocks that includes the different power levels and general background information but doesn't list out all of the OGC goodies used to character the characters.
In terms of formatting, they've removed the different colored backgrounds for the different levels and in my opinion, this works well with the text. About the only thing they have to watch now is the formatting covering the page numbers or breaking past the scrolled look in the various subsections like the Use in.
As with previous books, the greatest threat to this product remains free NPCs from the official source via the Wizards of the Coast site. This doesn't count the printed books devoted to NPCs, both official and unofficial.
Dogs of War continues to be a good source not only for NPCs with variable CRs, but also OGC chocked full of crunch and ideas.
