Heroes Of Battle SUCKS!!! (IMHO)
- Thread starter swordsmasher
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James Heard
Explorer
What? you don't trust me? 
James Heard said:What? you don't trust me?
Well, I value your input
but I would like to see a full review before I make my mind up. At $30 it'll be about £18 for me, which is quite a lot for a supplement. Also I've been burned by WotC before (3.0 Psionics Handbook, arguably the 3.0 Monster Manual! - *terrible* art) so I'm cautious.
DragonLancer
Hero
This week I'm covering for my FLGS owner who has gone on holiday, and yesturday was dead so I sat down and read HoB from cover to cover.
Now first off I was looking forward to this book from everything I had read. Rather than focussing on mass battles it lets a gaming group focus on their PC's actions in a war or mass battle campaign and leaves the DM to decide on the ultimate result of their actions. And the first third or so of the book does this very well, but then you hit the rest of the book...
I found the rest of it rather poor and not well thought out. Victory points, commander's auras and the spells were rather naff (technical term). I couldn't see myself using them in a game because D&D can be complicated enough without having to add this into it. I'm sure that others out there will find such crunch a nice addition but for me it was a real turn off.
I'm not a fan of the hordes of prestige classes that WotC put out, but in a book dedicated to military adventures and campaigns they include only four! I thought the Combat Medic and Dread Commando weren't too bad, but Legendary Leader and War Weaver could have been better.
I'd also give the book 4/10 but only because to me it wasn't all that well put together, and for what it was it could have been better.
Now first off I was looking forward to this book from everything I had read. Rather than focussing on mass battles it lets a gaming group focus on their PC's actions in a war or mass battle campaign and leaves the DM to decide on the ultimate result of their actions. And the first third or so of the book does this very well, but then you hit the rest of the book...
I found the rest of it rather poor and not well thought out. Victory points, commander's auras and the spells were rather naff (technical term). I couldn't see myself using them in a game because D&D can be complicated enough without having to add this into it. I'm sure that others out there will find such crunch a nice addition but for me it was a real turn off.
I'm not a fan of the hordes of prestige classes that WotC put out, but in a book dedicated to military adventures and campaigns they include only four! I thought the Combat Medic and Dread Commando weren't too bad, but Legendary Leader and War Weaver could have been better.
I'd also give the book 4/10 but only because to me it wasn't all that well put together, and for what it was it could have been better.
Captain NeMo
First Post
It sounds like it will be an okay resource for, well, battles, but in the end I don't see why you are whining so much. 20 pages to help a player? Well, it's about time that a book dedicated to Dungeon Masters is made.
Ryltar
First Post
Shemeska said:
It doesn't, really. The writeups are just there to allow you to incorporate Tanar'ri/Baatezu armies into your battlefield in smaller units, basically it's like "Command Retinue is made up of demon/devil type x, who upon attack will use round-by-round-tactics y", "Scouting forces are made out of demon/devil type z, who will ..." et cetera. No "large scale" fiendish tactics or plots - anything that made Hellbound what it is.
BUT:
It's an excellent start for you to make up units from scratch using the HoB system, as they discuss various army concepts at length (for example, the differences between feudal and modern armies, different tasks and concepts). Thus, using the existing monsters, you'll quickly be able to group them according to their task on a battlefield. Even though the idea isn't that new at all, for me it is a great font of ideas (well, but then again, I'm no military nut
). I've been using it for a Blood War battle scene with no problems; if you want to run a large scale battle without wanting to roll a million dice, HoB really helps you organize and thus to cut down prep time.Well, I don't know if you picked up Champions of Ruin after all
but after flipping through CoR and reading HoB cover to cover, HoB comes out on top. I'd give it a 4/5 score. It really could have been even more in-depth if they'd given it another 50 pages, but even so, it's a good book - and since the art manages to have not a single weak piece, I feel the price is justified. If you want more opinions, I think there's already a thread floating around here somewhere with various people discussion HoB vs. mass battle systems - I've posted my reasoning there.
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JoeGKushner
Adventurer
In terms of price/page count, isn't this a 160 full color pages for $29.95?
Smaller than their 192 but at the same time, still competitive when compared to other 160 page $30 books like Savage Worlds, Morningstar, etc...
Smaller than their 192 but at the same time, still competitive when compared to other 160 page $30 books like Savage Worlds, Morningstar, etc...
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
On the one hand, I appreciate what they are trying to do in this book--playing out on a one to one scale the actions of the PCs in the wider battle, and having it influance the battle, vs. taking a more typical mass combat approach (where mass could be dozens to thousands of opponents).
BUT, the big turn off for me has been the "modernist" approach that seems to permiate the book, at least from everything posted and previewed. How hard would it be to use this book if I wanted a very ancient, or medieval feel to the combat, or more traditional fantasy (LotR)?
I will throw out some examples, though I am also interested in more general comments:
-storming over a wall into oncoming arrows and burning oil
-sneaking into a castle (by magic or non-magic means) to open the gate from the other side
-leading a charge (to break through an enemy line) to reach the enemy leader
-fighting in a true meelee with thousands of others, cheek to jowel?
AND, how much does it say about existing spells and skills (and etc) in the context of sieges and battles. E.g. can, as is often claimed on these boards, a high level caster be the key in overcoming the defenses of a large castle?
BUT, the big turn off for me has been the "modernist" approach that seems to permiate the book, at least from everything posted and previewed. How hard would it be to use this book if I wanted a very ancient, or medieval feel to the combat, or more traditional fantasy (LotR)?
I will throw out some examples, though I am also interested in more general comments:
-storming over a wall into oncoming arrows and burning oil
-sneaking into a castle (by magic or non-magic means) to open the gate from the other side
-leading a charge (to break through an enemy line) to reach the enemy leader
-fighting in a true meelee with thousands of others, cheek to jowel?
AND, how much does it say about existing spells and skills (and etc) in the context of sieges and battles. E.g. can, as is often claimed on these boards, a high level caster be the key in overcoming the defenses of a large castle?
