Kingdoms of Kalamar Villain Design Handbook 3.5

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hi-

Was looking at this earlier today and was curious on the crunch factor IE are there ready made villains to drop in a campaign? Anyother comments would be greatly appreciated too.

Also, I noticed that this setting reminds of me Greyhawk, does this remind others of the same? It does look impressive indeed but is it as good as Greyhawk or forgotten realms, which I am DM'ing at the moment.

thanks

Scott

 

[niastri]

I am just starting a game as a GM in Kalamar, I wonder if there are more.

Kalamar is wonderful for its wonderful consideration of realism. The cultures moved, the gods are (too) plentiful, the distance is huge, etc.

I hope you get good answers and even consider me as a DM in Kalamar as a guy to chat with....

 

[Ry]

I was extremely disappointed with the 3E version of this book - there was a very large volume of editing errors, as well as unbalanced rules and rules that went against the grain of d20 (like a class that returns the character to 1st level and then gives 20th level power in 10 levels... an overpowered decapitation attack as a feat, things like that). I thought there was just an unforgiveable lack of clarity in one of the sections - the "Anti-Feats", which was just an _awful_ penalty system. As far as rules go, it reminded me of the worst parts of trying to cobble together disparate 2E sourcebooks. Compared with the old 2E Complete Book of Villains, I also found its villain-definition stuff a big disappointment.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I never got the 3.5 edition, but I've heard from a few sources that they've fixed the anit-feat thing.

There were many parts of the 3.0 book that I did enjoy though. I enjoyed the material on the psychology of the villains. Some of the PrCs I thought were a little out of place there, but fit the campaign for the most part.

 

[Berandor]

I was extremely disappointed with the 3E version of this book - there was a very large volume of editing errors, as well as unbalanced rules and rules that went against the grain of d20 (like a class that returns the character to 1st level and then gives 20th level power in 10 levels... an overpowered decapitation attack as a feat, things like that). I thought there was just an unforgiveable lack of clarity in one of the sections - the "Anti-Feats", which was just an _awful_ penalty system. As far as rules go, it reminded me of the worst parts of trying to cobble together disparate 2E sourcebooks. Compared with the old 2E Complete Book of Villains, I also found its villain-definition stuff a big disappointment.

So... did you like it? Come on, tell us what you really think

 

[Psion]

I'd be interested to know as well what they did with the mechanics in this book. I was just persuing the 3.0 version for the villain concept part, and thumbing through the rest reminded me how awful the mechanical stuff was. I see they still have "anti-feats" (I guess Joe's definition of "fixing" such a thing differs from mine... I am dubious about any drawback mechanic, but the 3.0 implementation was the worst I have ever seen.) They hit upon my pet peeve of using the outdated term "memorization" for spells. The combat manuevers were abusive, etc. So anyone who can tell me what they did with the 3.5 version would be appreciated.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The combat manuevers were abusive, etc. So anyone who can tell me what they did with the 3.5 version would be appreciated.

At first, I really dug the idea of combat manuevers. Ways to do cool stuff that didn't require a new critical hit system.

Playtesting proved that theory wrong...

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Well, the Anti-Feats and Combat Maneuvers are labeled "Variant". We didn't add them as new standard rules because we knew some people wouldn't like the idea.

As for the 3.5 version, the anti-feats are now separated into different tables for general, combat related, spellcaster and psionic antifeats. Other stuff was also updated to 3.5, where necessary.

I personally whipped anyone who missed an edit or misused a word.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

And, of course, the flavor text is generally regarded as some of the best villain design info out there.

http://www.enworld.org/reviews/index.php?sub=yes&where=currentprod&which=kokv

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

Thanks Mark, the book is on order!


Scorr

And, of course, the flavor text is generally regarded as some of the best villain design info out there.

http://www.enworld.org/reviews/index.php?sub=yes&where=currentprod&which=kokv