Experiences with Warcraft

[Graf]

(sorry to start another warcraft thread when there is already one of the first page)

My brother is considering begining a warcraft game. We liked the games and think there is a lot of potential in the world for a certain kind of story (kick down the doors, kill monsters, with occasional bits of politics to break up the bloodshed).

Unfortunately the Warcraft book seems to be about as much miss as hit. They have a lot of things (like the paladin PrC) that are deliberately different than DnD but aren't really like the computer games. And a lot of the stuff that could have been easily included in a DnD type system hasn't.
(he was particularly frustrated that the undead, a major big part of Warcraft3, don't get any kind of treatment).

It's been out for a bit, I assume people have had experiences.
Have you tweeted the rules to get them closer to the games? How?
How about balance rules... some stuff looks unbalanced, other stuff (Tauren Warstomp feat?) looks pretty weak.

Share please.
Thanks!

 

[evildm]

My friends and I had quite a bit of fun with it. The only thing is that the main book doesn't include any monsters, and the Warcraft setting doesn't really use normal monsters. They ended up fighting alot of NPCs, basically, but it was fun overall. The history in the book is invaluable, as it includes more information than can be gleaned from the games, I found.

 

[Teddust]

I have the Warcraft PHB and the Manual of Monsters, and run a Warcraft campaign with them, and frankly I cannot recommend either one of them.

The PHB has some useful history, but the geography section is a joke. For the entire continent of Kalimdor there is maybe about 1/20th the information that the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting gives you about Faerun. Also, the character classes are unexiting. Three of the prestige classes are just bad versions of the D&D Paladin, Cleric, and Druid. The Healer class is just the Cleric weakened to the point where very few players will actually play it. The Tinker class seemed to be the only one that was actually interesting. The spells section is brief, and it seemed like a lot of the were just weakened versions of spells in the D&D PHB (Blizzard for example is just a bad fireball). The feats section is probably the best, but clearly they didn't test some of them for balance. One feat allows a fighter to make everyone in a 10ft. radius around him fall prone unless they make a reflex save against 10 + dmg dealt with his weapon. When Tauren can easily do 20+ damage at low levels, this make anything without ridiculous reflex saves almost impossible to engage them in melee.

The Manual of Monsters sucks mainly because about 1/2 the monsters are rehashes of those already found in the D&D Monster Manual. The creatures aren't identicle, but the differences are often fairly minor. If you don't own a D&D monster manual its a good book, if you do you will feel cheated.

 

[Graf]

nobody else huh?

Anybody have any resources to suggest, or books that might be useful?
tx

 

[MarauderX]

I got the PHB since I like the games and I was hoping to incorporate a lot of what was in the book into my game. Reading it through I was struck by how overpowering some of the feats and spells were from the start, and thought the content would have been closer to the games. Over all I was disappointed, but we'll wait to see if they bring out warcraft 3.5/frozen throne... kidding of course.

 

[Ibram]

The undead get an entire section in the Warcraft Manual of Monsters.
I've found that I first refer to the Warcraft MM then to the regular MM, i just like the creatures better.

The Healer class is one of my fav classes, its like a fixed cleric.

 

[MDSnowman]

I ran a brief (read: Three Weeks) Warcraft game a few months ago. It went horriblly I doubt the setting itself was broken but it attracted a lot of very immature players to the table who I wouldn't have approached for a more mature and thoughtful game (which I tried to make it ) I still like the setting and plan to buy Magic and Mayhem but my desire to start a Warcraft game is practilly non-existent now.

...As for the Healer... it's about damn time someone balanced the Cleric, there's no reason devotion and caring somehow imparts on you the ability to wear full plate.

..I do believe the prestige classes are ridiculously easy to qualify for and in the case of some (Gladiator) it bore no resemblence to what the class did in the game, so in that case I used the Blademaster class from Dragon #299

 

[Voadam]

I got the Manual of Monsters recently but I have not gotten the setting book.

There are a few rehashes like gnolls and kobolds tweaked slightly for the setting (the kobolds look rat like, not like little lizardmen) but I really like the powerful demon section and the undead section looks fairly meaty as well with a lot of templates. The art is very good for the most part and there are some powerful NPCs in the back.

 

[Graf]

Thanks for the feedback.
(I have to admit I almost want them to come out with a second Warcraft main book, like they did with Star Wars, but balanced and closer to the game.... why did Paladin's get detect poison?)

The monster book reviews do look quite positive. (I see a few familiar names...)
The bro is into undead, so he might like that.

Neither one really addresses how balanced the monsters are. I'm not worrying about skill point or high CR stuff, but anything that looked unbalanced?

 

[Graf]

Also:
It looks like the Alliance and Horde Companion includes races like the Pandaren, and Naga again. How much overlap is there between the two books?