Frostburn: To buy or not to buy?

[der_kluge]

I gotta side with Dark Psion here. It sounds like more WoTC crap to me.

I mean, look at some of these:

Snowflake Wardance: There are some great new feats in Frostburn. Bards should check out the Snowflake Wardance feat. By expending one of your bardic music uses for the day, you get to apply your Charisma modifier to attack rolls made with one-handed slashing weapons.

Now what about this is specific to cold regions, other than the lame-ass name? I can't help but think that WoTC uses splat books like this to dump worthless feats that didn't make the cut anywhere else. I've written a couple of d20 books myself, and when we're done, there's always all this stuff that just doesn't quite make the cut. Maybe there's no room, maybe it's just outside the topic at hand, for whatever reason. But, good writers never let that stuff go to waste, so they just recycle it, and put it somewhere else.

Faith in the Frost: Clerics can use the Faith in the Frost feat to inflict cold damage on undead whenever they turn them. (Works particularly well on undead with the fire subtype!)

Yep, whole bunches of [fire] type undead running around. WTF? I can't think of ANY, unless you get goofy and make an undead fire dragon. But then, isn't it just an undead dragon, and would lose the [fire] subtype?

Spells!: There's a lot of new spells in Frostburn. As you can expect, they're mostly connected to the cold in some way, but that doesn't mean that you need to be standing on a glacier or iceberg to cast them. In fact, these spells can be just the thing you're looking for when you're sneaking into a dungeon located in or near a volcano, looking for fire giants and red dragons to fight. Crush your enemies with comets, create avalanches and blizzards out of nothing, or drop an iceberg on that obnoxious evil temple!

Hoo boy. And how many of these are truly original? Comets? Yea - [cold] based meteor swarm. Creating avalanches? Yea, that's gonna come in real andy. Blizzards? Don't we already have a spell for that? And I thought wish could already drop icebergs on evil temples? I wonder how many of these new spells are just energy substituted spells from the PHB?

Yea, I definitely WON't be getting this - and I'm playing a cold-based sorcerer currently!!

 

[Krieg]

Icicle shooting "icechuckers"?!?!

*sigh*

 

[Dark Psion]

Well my number one issue is the price. I don't mind paying $35 for a quality book, but lately WotC is releasing everything in hardcover and some of them are not worthy. And since this is a niche book, so it will not get the abuse the core rulebooks get.

Whenever you post a list like this, I would assume it is the best of the book. If these are the best, I would hate to see the worst.

Neaderthals have never done anything for me. I mean what are Orcs if not Primative Humans?

I was thinking about that Snowflake Wardance feat and I realized it is just like Weapon Finesse (Use an alternate Ability Modifer on a select number of weapons), but unlike Weapon Finesse, which is always on, this one costs a use of Bardic Music.

The Religion bit does interst me, but are we talking about details of the actual faiths or just more "god stats"?

2. Primeval: Check out this prestige class. The primeval is a shapechanging warrior who can transform into a prehistoric creature. Think of it as a druid specialized in wildshaping -- no spell advancement, but you'll really be able to tear things apart when you transform into a supercharged dinosaur or dire animal!

You do know that the Shifter in Master's of the Wild could do all of this by 3rd level?

And while having a Penguin for a familiar might be cool, I sure hope you don't need to run away from anything anytime soon. waddle*waddle*waddle*

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Icicle shooting "icechuckers"?!?!

I have to admit, that almost made me icechuck myself.

Poke me with a stick when there's an ocean-based one of these from WotC, since that's the only environment I think is under-covered in official books presently.

 

[Pants]

You do know that the Shifter in Master's of the Wild could do all of this by 3rd level?

Well... that's because it's the Shifter
A PrC that has always struck me as having very precarious balance problems.

 

[The_lurkeR]

I have to chime in on the side of the original poster.
I too was looking forward to this book, but after reading the "top 10" I don't believe I will. If that's the TOP ten, I'd hate to see the rest.

 

[Frost]

Yeah, I have to admit, that list actually put me off of Frostburn. I'm still curious enough to take a look at it when it comes out, but my once high-hopes for it have been dashed.

On a sidenote, I too recommend folks interested in this check out Frost and Fur as well. That book has what I would expect from an artic-theme book. It's excellent.

 

[Trickstergod]

It's interesting to see how advertising backfires at times, or how some products unexpectedly bloom beyond what they were intended to.

With that said, the top ten list Wizards has there may as well read as the top ten reasons not to buy the book. It was, in my mind, a simple list of "More of the same, only with the expected ice theme to it," which, while I suppose isn't bad, certainly isn't an advertising point, either. Then it had a chunk of other things that turned me off. I'm in agreement with those who think Snowflake Wardance is just poorly named. If that feat and its name are exemplary of what one might expect in the book, then it's a very sad state of affairs, I must say. Neanderthals also to float my boat, and while penguin familiars might be amusing, it's certainly not the sort of thing that would make me buy a book.

So, yeah. That list certainly won't make me buy it by any means.

 

[johnsemlak]

What's the release date on this one.

I'm almost definitely buying it, when I can.

 

[Paragon Kobold]

Yep, whole bunches of [fire] type undead running around. WTF? I can't think of ANY, unless you get goofy and make an undead fire dragon.

There is the effigy from Monster Manual II. This feat would be really useful if your GM uses a lot of those...