Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves

[Messageboard Golem]

I had a hard time reviewing this book. Initially I was quite disappointed by it, as it is advertised as "the definitive sourcebook for dwarven characters of all kinds".

Unfortunately, I cannot agree with that. This is indeed the definitive sourcebook for multi-classed dwarves. Two-thirds of the book is dedicated to prestige classes for dwarves who have multi-classed as Fighter-Something. Fighter-Rogue, Fighter-Cleric, Fighter-Sorcerer... they are all here. The rest of the book is feats, fighting styles and dwarven craftmanship. The text is also in an irritating font, a slightly "crunchy" type-writer style that is VERY close to being a "grunge" font as the font-sites call them. This is awkward for reading extended blocks of text.

The first section is new feats. A vast majority of these are combat-oriented. None seem especially powerful, nor especially weak. The downside is that none seem especially necessary honestly, except for yet another version of the "Mad Skillz" feat that grants +2 to two different skills. After this we have fighting styles. I like the idea of fighting styles, but I don't like rewarding characters with additional powers for having a pile of already-useful feats.

Then we have dwarven runes. Here the book stands up. These area set of feats that allow the crafting of items with special abilities like flaming, or that grant bonuses on certain rolls while they are in effect (once per day). This is an excellent addition to both dwarven D&D lore, as well as being easily ported over for use with just about any race or item that needs runes. With the additional runes rules from the Bad Axe Games website, this section stands out and already covers the 9.95 cover price, in my opinion. D&D -needs- runes, and these rules provide them with balance and style.

Dwarven Craftmanship is also a nice expansion on the Craft rules from the core rules. This section includes rules for crafting for increased durability, using enhanced alloys, crafting lighter weapons, more flexible armor, or better balanced weapons. Similar rules are applied to stonecrafting. As crafting is supposedly such an important thing to dwarves, this also made me happy.

The prestige classes were interesting, and I like the IDEA of attempting a prestige-class for every major multi-class of the race's favored class - but it also leaves me cold as this entire part of the book is only of ANY use to a character who has multi-classed as a fighter. Some I like like the Rock-Warden and Rune-Priest, but most of them just didn't impress me and seemed to be strained attempts at making fighter multi-class classes that aren't just staggered core-class progressions. The fighter-ranger was especially weak, just being a set of "virual feats" based on the favored enemy rules.

Finally we come to the role-playing chapter. Two pages. Two half-sized pages no less. This chapter reduces dwarves to stereotypes - a set of Seven Dwarven Virtues.

Instead of expanding on the dwarf, this book seems to pigeonhole the dwarf even further into the dwarven fighter stereotype. As a primary book about dwarved, this book falls flat. But whne placed bside any other dwarf book on the market, the focused treatment of the book shines out as a great complement.

Thus the hard time granting a rating to the book. Standing on its own, I give it a 3. But as someone who owns the Quintessential Dwarf AND Hammer & Helm, this book has no overlap with them and provides some excellent additional material and viewpoints.

I am VERY glad to have this in my collection, but again, that is tempered by the fact that I know that this pleasure is BECAUSE I have other dwarven books.

 

[Krug]

This was a review copy. Not a playtest review.

Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves is the first in Badaxe's HoHF series. The books are as much 'class' books as they are 'race' books, and for this one the emphasis, besides being on Dwarves, is on the fighter.

After the introduction, you get Dwarven feats for inclusion in your campaign. One of the more 'controversial' feats is Refined Skill Focus, which either gives bonuses to skills OR +2 ranks with one skill. I think many DMs would be uncomfortable with this, but considering that the player has to give up a feat for this, it might be justificed.

There's also a series of fighting 'styles', which fighters can spend a feat to learn. They're hard to qualify for, and don't seem unbalancing. They can add quite a bit of flavor to your Fighter. Rules for Dwarven Runes are also presented, as well as Craftmanship.

The meat of the book goes to the Prestige Classes, extended from combinations of the fighter class with another primary class. They're a mix of those with Dwarvish Flavour, and others that could easily be used with other races without little problems. Given that it's a Dwarf book, I would have prefered more of the former. Those PrCs that are more 'dwarvish' in tone work better for me; such as the Stoneheart Ascetic, the Tunnel-Fighter or the Rock-Warden. Others might like the fact that they can use a class like the Slayer (who gets bonus feats for use against favored enemies only) or the Aceldamist (Specialist Fighter-Sorceror combos) in their campaigns easily, without limiting it to just dwarves.

The final two pages present seven dwarf virtues to help players in roleplaying. Not so useful for an expert player but food for thought.

Targeted more at players, HoHF: Dwarves does a great job of fleshing out dwarves, though the material is more loose bits and pieces. I certainly would have liked to see how to put all the pieces together to really make it 'definitive'. There are some typos that are slightly annoying, such as a missing sneak attack on the 10th level for the Tunnel-fighter, and grammatical errors. This is a good sourcebook for Dwarves and a must-have for fans of the race.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Heroes of High Favor Dwarves is the first book in the Heroes of High Favor series and is broken up into 4 chapters. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of the dwarves. While the largest part of the book deals with Prestige classes that is not all that this book has to offer.

Chapter 1 deals with the generic aspects of dwarves. It gives a quick overview of society, attitudes, and culture. Also included is a brief description of the dwarves favored class: the fighter and a small section on the prestige classes.

Chapter 2 can be broken down into four parts: Feats, Fighting Styles, Runes, and skills. Most of the Feats are fighter or dwarf oriented and most are usable in combat, with a few that are not. Some examples are Axe mastery which grants a +1 to hit with all axes you are proficient with and Giant killer which cuts down the area that larger creatures threaten.

Fighting Styles are for the player who wants to specialize in "weapon and shield" or "single weapon" or "two-handed weapon" or "two-weapon style", and are reminiscent of 2nd edition D&D. I do not like the fighting styles presented here, in my opinion they require too much in the form of prerequisites and do not offer enough in return; at most you could get a total of +4 to hit. As long as you meet the prerequisites you can use the style no matter what class you are but to be able to specialize in a fighting style you need at least four levels of fighter and must use a feat to specialize in the style. For example to use the single weapon fighting style you need Expertise, Lighting Reflexes, Weapon Focus, Weapon Finesse, four or more ranks in Balance and four or more ranks in Concentration. That’s four feats just to gain a + 1 dodge bonus to your AC. Now to specialize as I mentioned you need the levels of fighter and a feat, this only adds another + 1 dodge bonus bringing the total up to +2. Also anytime you lose your Dex bonus to AC you also lose this bonus.

Runic Feats have some advantages, first they allow you to use some feats without having the prerequisites. For example Rune of Cleaving allows you to use the Cleave feat without having the Power Attack feat. Also dwarven priests can channel turning attempts into the Runes to activate them a second time per day. The major drawbacks to these feats are that they require you to have the Rune feat to activate, identify of craft the Rune. While I agree you should have the feat to craft the feat and possibly to identify it I do not agree on the activation part. The second major drawback is the Rune feats go off of the dwarves worst stat, Charisma. The Cleaving feat is usable one time a day for one round per point of charisma bonus.

Finally, the skills section details a few new uses for Appraise, Diplomacy and Forgery, and a new skill Knowledge: Dwarves. Following these skills are new uses for Armorsmithing, Weaponsmithing, Blacksmithing and Stoneworking. Basically the new uses are for adding masterwork components to items made with these skills.


Chapter 3 is where the Prestige Classes are. These are set up with 2 pages of text detailing the characters role within dwarven society and his role in the adventuring party, with a brief description of what the PRC is, followed by 2 pages detailing the class and its abilities. Two of the PRCs I liked a lot are the Battle-Rager (Fighter-Barbarian). While at first glance the Against the Odds ability seems a little unbalancing it turns out to not be as powerful as first thought. The Against the Odds ability grants the Battle Rager a + 1 morale bonus to AC for every melee opponent who threatens the space occupied by him. To off set this the Battle Rager loses all special abilities for this PRC if he wears armor or uses a shield.

The other PRC I liked is the Paragon (Fighter-Paladin). For a PRC it has some interesting abilities. The one that catches my eye is their ability to quest for an Ancestral Weapon instead of calling a special mount. As the Paragon goes up in levels his weapon gains more special abilities effectively giving the PC a small say in what his weapon becomes. Their other ability that makes them unique is the ability to use their lay on hands ability to repair any metal weapon, which can make them very useful if the party encounters someone with the sunder feat.


Chapter 4 is a 2-page wrap-up giving ideas on dwarven roleplaying and a list with descriptions of seven dwarven virtues. Each virtue also has example of what happens when these virtues are taken to the extreme granting the player the ability to play the stereotypical dwarf or the exact opposite.

Overall this book adds a few interesting things to the dwarven race. Although it has some draw backs mainly the Rune Feat section and the Fighting Styles section the book is still worth the money. There were no typos that I found and the art was decent, so in conclusion while not the tell all book on dwarves, I recommend this book.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Review of Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves by Bad Axe Games

Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves is Bad Axe Games first book, and is also the first in their line of race books. This book is rather small being only 62 pages and it is not a full size book. However the price is only about ten dollars American and it is packed inside. The cover is one of the coolest covers I’ve seen. It’s very simple, yet really says Dwarf. It has a symbol of an Anvil and Hammer on it. The tones are very earthy and title and author’s name are seamlessly part of the cover. The art inside is also very fitting. It adds to the text and is not overbearing.

There are two basic points that need to be said before getting into the specifics. The first is that this book is filled with rules and very little narrative. It has feats, new uses for old skills, prestige classes, but only a little on dwarven culture and other extra information. Some people prefer the “crunch” to the “fluff”. Second, this options presented in this book are very well in line with everything in the core rules. There are no odd new rules, different presentations of the dwarven people, or sub races.

The book starts with a two-page introduction. It’s very basic and reiterates what one expects of dwarves. From there we go directly to the feats. There are new fighter feats as well as feats recommended only for dwarves. There are many new combat feats like Giant Killer and Hammer Mastery. The first one negates reach of some creatures, the other grants a bonus to attack with all Hammer weapons. There are a few other types like Sturdy Back that reduces encumbrance. All the feats seem useful and balanced. Next we get into fighting styles. These are four styles: Single Weapon, Weapon and Shield, Two Handed Style, and Two Weapon Style. Each has certain feat requirements and if all the requirements are meet, one automatically gets and additional bonus when using this style. Then each style also has a specialization that can only be taken as a feat for characters with at least four levels in fighter. The bonuses received are nice, but not overpowering. Next the book goes into dwarven runes. These are simple additions that can be added to any weapon, armor, or item. The runes are a nice, simple way to add a bit of dwarven mystery to items.

Next the book covers some new uses for old skills, although it’s mostly new dwarven options for crafting. There are many new traits that can be built into weapons and armor. These new options are easily presented here and all the craft DCs and price included. I really like this section as it shows the superior quality that dwarven items can have.

The real meat of the book are the prestige classes. This is well over half the book. There are ten prestige classes, and each one is aimed towards a multi class fighter. A fighter with levels in any of the other ten core classes will find a prestige class in here that fits. Each prestige class shows their role in the dwarven society and their role in an adventuring party. I really liked that that information was added to all the classes. It makes them easy to use as NPCs to show the diversity of a Dwarven civilization. All of the prestige classes seem pretty well balanced and interesting.

The book ends with a couple of pages on Dwarven Society. Over all it’s a good little book. It really presents many options for the dwarven character, but I feel it centers too much on the fighter. As a first product it is well done and void of the usual mistakes in editing and organization one tends to see. And lastly, I have to comment on the clever name of the company: Bad Axe Games. I think it’s the coolest sounding company out there.