REVIEW: Villain's Design Handbook (Kenzer)

[JeffB]

Citizen, your request for fluff is in breach of the 3E publishing code. Consequently, you are hereby branded an intellectual masturbator of a DM who must be more interested in stroking his own ego than in running a quality game fuelled by masses of oh-so-crunchy, munchy, glorious crunch. You are definitely in the minority of purchasers, which means that you are both wrong and a traitor. Please proceed to your nearest FLGS for termination.

More seriously, I think you might want to track down the 2E Complete Book of Villains.

LOL...kidding or not...there's a lot of truth in that statement...

 

[Wicht]

For the record Andy, I am still planning on buying the book, however I am curious as to why the anti-feats were kept if the removal of the fatal flaws so seriously wounded the concept. Why not just find something else to put in?

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Thanks for the review, drnuncheon.

I suspect I will pass, but I have not purchased a Kenzer product yet- so I was not strongly considering it either.

FD

 

[Orclicker]

I can't really say, that decision was made by Kenzer. However I do beleive that part of the reason is that the Anti-Feats can be made to work (albeit with a bit of work), and they can be cleaned up with an errata, hopefully one that included the Fatal Flaws. Another reason is that there was a lot of speculation and anticipation of Anti-Feats leading up to the book.

I really don't know much more than that, infact I haven't actually seen a printed version of the book yet, mine hasn't arived yet

I'll see if any of the Kenzerfolk can come here and comment.

Andy

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Thanks for the review (even though I have some disagreements with a few of your points)!

Since you wanted feedback, I'll list them below:

The art is fairly infrequent and no particular pieces stand out in my mind as being notably good or bad.

True, how "good" a piece of art is becomes a matter of opinion, but I have to say that I don't think the AMOUNT is infrequent. There are 55 pieces of art, not including the chapter headers or images of the villain record sheet, averaging AT LEAST one piece every four pages, except in several areas where art is unnecessary - indexes, for example.

The 'villainous classes' information that follows, on the other hand, is not as good - mostly very obvious blurbs such as "Fighters make excellent villains in combat heavy campaigns" that seem to exist to fill space. How about showing us how to turn those stereotypes around? Hints on how a fighter could be used as a villain in a non-combat campaign would have been far more valuable.

The section you refer to is "choosing race and class" and specifically states that the blurbs are "general guidelines." The first five chapters of the book should give plenty of ideas on how to turn those stereotypes around.

An interesting idea, anti-feats are 'disadvantages' that can be taken, one per level. Two anti-feats will get you a regular feat. While it's an interesting concept, it has some fairly major flaws, and is probably one of the more disappointing parts of the book.

First, the anti-feats are randomly rolled on a d1000 table, meaning that you could easily get results that are no penalty at all.

It's true that anti-feats are intended to be rolled randomly, to avoid min-maxing if given as a player option. There probably will need to be an errata line that says "When an anti-feat does not apply to your villain's class, you may reroll."

Second, some of the conversions from feat to antifeat are particularly ill thought-out - take the Psionic Weapon anti-feat, for example: "Your melee weapon deals 1d4 fewer points of damage when you pay the cost of 1 power point." Others are useless, liek the Ability Focus anti-feat, which merely says "Choose one of your special attacks. This attack is less potnent than normal." I have to wonder how well this table was reviewed by both Kenzer and WOTC when things like that get past.

This is a matter of wording, which the DM should easily be able to clear up by looking at the normal feat in the PHB. Of course, I agree that these two may need some errata to clarify them.

The Darklight Wizard is even worse. A 10-level prestige class that can potentially be entered at 2nd level (requirement: 5 ranks each in 2 Knowledge skills), which strips you of all of your levels when you enter it

Ah, but this class is tied in with one of the evil magic items, the Darklight Codex. It's supposed to screw you over...

you'll be casting 9th level spells at your 9th level of darklight wizard. Well, you would if there were any 9th level spells on the darklight wizard list.

Crap. Based on where the spell list is, I'm guessing it got cut off in printing. Minor errata needed.

Last is the veteran officer, which is a great concept that is crippled by the entry requirements - 8 ranks total in class skills plus 4 ranks each in 4 different Knowledge skills means that your typical fighter (the apparent target of the class, since it requires Weapon Specialization) can't get into the class at all - it would require all 20 levels of his skill points, unless he was human or had an Int bonus - while a fighter/wizard multiclass would be able to enter at 6th level. I'm not sure this is exactly what was intended.

Well, the key word here IS 'Veteran.' If just any fighter inexperienced in leading troops in battle (which is what the knowledge skills are for) could get in, it would lose all its meaning.

None of these groups or classes, by the way, seem all that inherently villainous (with the exception of the Darklight Wizard and the Blue Salamanders) and many could be used as 'good' organizations or PrCs.

The beginning of the chapter does state that "The following prestige classes are available to all characters, though they have certain qualities that make them particularly attractive to villains." These are detailed in the background section of each PrC.

The next rulesy section is on magic items - mostly items with curses or drawbacks. There are a few rules hiccups here, like the arrow which compels its firer to go retrieve it after it is shot (with no save apparently possible, and apparently ignoring the fact that magic arrows are basically only good for one shot anyway),

That's what makes it cursed!

The rules finish up with some new monsters - the Darkling Snatcher (a goblinoid) and the Guardian Effigy (a sort of mini-golem), plus a set of undead templates - renamed wraiths, ghouls, mummies, vampires and wights, intelligent skeletons and zombies, and of course the lich.

Note that the undead templates are generally designed to turn villains into more powerful versions of those undead. They aren't simply "renamed."

Still, it is definitely raidable for ideas. The advice and planning tips are sound, even if the mechanics are not always, and that definitely keeps the book from falling into too low of a rating.

You did a good review, in my opinion. However, I do feel that it seems a little too focused on what you saw as glitches in the rules, without focusing on the real core of the book - the first five chapters that detail the core of the villain - his emotions, personality, goals, dreams, scemes etc etc etc.

I think it's these chapters that really help make the book what it is.

Mark Plemmons
Kenzer and Company
www.kenzerco.com

 

[Coredump]

Last is the veteran officer, which is a great concept that is crippled by the entry
requirements - 8 ranks total in class skills plus 4 ranks each in 4 different Knowledge skills
means that your typical fighter (the apparent target of the class, since it requires Weapon
Specialization) can't get into the class at all - it would require all 20 levels of his skill
points, unless he was human or had an Int bonus - while a fighter/wizard multiclass would
be able to enter at 6th level. I'm not sure this is exactly what was intended.

I don't have the book, so maybe I am misunderstanding the requirements. But from what I can tell, you need a total of 24 ranks in skills.
Assuming a 11 intelligence, that would take until 9th level. I am not sure what you mean by taking all 20 levels. Also, I would assume that someone being looked up to as a 'veteren' fighter would have above average intelligence. Assuming a 14 int. that would only take until 3rd level.


.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Thanks for the review.

This sounds very similar to my impression of the Kingdoms of Kalamar player's guide: some stuff that's quite good, some stuff that's creative and useful, and some stuff that's ridiculously overpowered or game-breakingly bad (mechanically) thrown into the mix.

 

[drnuncheon]

I don't have the book, so maybe I am misunderstanding the requirements. But from what I can tell, you need a total of 24 ranks in skills.
Assuming a 11 intelligence, that would take until 9th level. I am not sure what you mean by taking all 20 levels. Also, I would assume that someone being looked up to as a 'veteren' fighter would have above average intelligence. Assuming a 14 int. that would only take until 3rd level.

Fighters get 2 skill ranks per level.

8 ranks in class skills = 4 levels
16 ranks in non-class skills at double cost = 32 ranks = 16 levels

If you were a human or had a +1 int, you'd be able to get in at 13th level. If you had both, 10th level.

J

 

[drnuncheon]

First I will admitt that I am biased in my opinion as I am one of the authors of the book in question.

I find that you have spent much time focusing on what you didn't like about the book, but you seemed to just gloss over the areas that you did like. I'm not sure why you did this. I'm not trying to complain about your review it seems to be objective, I'm just trying to find out why you did or did not like certain parts. WOuld it be possible for you to rank each section that you mentioned above? I'm just curious.

Sure! I would give the first five chapters a 4/5 and the mechanics sections a 2/5.

I didn't dwell a lot on the advice, because how much you like advice and how useful it is is an intensely personal thing. I might buy something and find it extremely useful while another DM would say, "Bah, I've been doing that for ages." It's very subjective.

The mechanical portions, on the other hand, are much less subjective - and I know that a lot of gamers are very interested in the "crunchy bits". So I try to cover those in a fair amount of detail.

In a book like this, where the advice is much better than the mechanics, it leads to a review that may look a little more negative than it is really meant to be - so now I know at least some of what I need to work on.

As for the problems with the Anti-Feats, a lot of the problems are because WoTC forced Kenzer to pull a large section of the rules at the last moment (A part called Fatal Flaws that really helped to balance things, a remnant of these can be found on the villain character sheet at the back of the book).

That's rough, that really is, and it would have helped the book a lot - but unless the anti-feats were dropped in there instead if the Fatal Flaw stuff, I think the problems I noted would have still been there.

Also if I remember correctly the Veteran Officer's skill requirementw were similar to those of the Caviler from Sword and Fist.

The cavalier needs 4 ranks of Knowledge (Nobility) and 10 ranks of class skills - 9th level for a nonhuman fighter of average Int.

The veteran officer has 4 ranks in 4 different cross-class skills. I don't know if Kalamar has an equivalent to the FRCS "Education" feat but it would seem to be a must.

As for the rules hiccups, Kenzer will most likely begin to compile an errata, which they post on their website.

As a final question have you created a villain using the book? I think that you may be surprised when you see those archetypes woking.

That's great! When the errata is up I will note it in the review and mention the problems that it fixes.

J

 

[drnuncheon]

Re: Re: REVIEW: Villain's Design Handbook (Kenzer)

Thanks for the review (even though I have some disagreements with a few of your points)!

Hi Mark! Glad you saw it - and disagreement is the spice of, if not life, at least the Internet. I'll respond in kind to clarify where I'm coming from, and try to take note of some of the suggestions for future reviews.

True, how "good" a piece of art is becomes a matter of opinion, but I have to say that I don't think the AMOUNT is infrequent. There are 55 pieces of art, not including the chapter headers or images of the villain record sheet, averaging AT LEAST one piece every four pages, except in several areas where art is unnecessary - indexes, for example.

The 'infrequent' art was mostly in comparison to the other books I'd been flipping through lately, which was WOTC stuff like OA and the FCRS, which seem to have art on almost every page - plus some of the old 2e stuff. Maybe those books would be better charactersized as having 'frequent' art?

Now, that's not to say that 'infrequent' art is a bad thing. Unless the art is spectacular (or important, like in a monster book), I'd rather not have it all over the place. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but I'd rather have a thousand words well-chosen and relevant than five thousand that only deal peripherally with the topic.

The section you refer to is "choosing race and class" and specifically states that the blurbs are "general guidelines." The first five chapters of the book should give plenty of ideas on how to turn those stereotypes around.

I guess it was just jarring to see that in the midst of some otherwise well done advice. When I see something like "fighters make excellent villains in combat-heavy campaigns" it makes me feel like either the authors think I'm a drooling idiot, or they're trying to put something, anything there - for reasons of extra space, parallel structure, or whatever. (In this case, I think it was parallel structure, which is a fine idea, but it still made me feel as if I were being talked down to.)

It's true that anti-feats are intended to be rolled randomly, to avoid min-maxing if given as a player option. There probably will need to be an errata line that says "When an anti-feat does not apply to your villain's class, you may reroll."

That definitely needs to be there, and in a bit more detail (how do you determine if something "applies to your villain's class"? Some are obvious - like metamagic feats for a non-spellcaster - but how about Point Blank Shot for a wizard?) I understand the need to avoid minmaxing - the random rolls had the potential to be bad enough.

Ah, but this class is tied in with one of the evil magic items, the Darklight Codex. It's supposed to screw you over...

Hmm, I may have given the wrong impression in that section. It wasn't the loss of all the other levels that I was really talking about - although that's an extremely bizarre mechanic, and I'd have been happier seeing it worked into something a little more similar to

Oh, and it's supposed to screw me over by giving me 9th level spells at 10th level? I know hordes of people that would be saying "sign me up"! I realize it's supposed to give you Great Power for Evil, but when the DM pulls out a CR7 villain that starts smacking you around with 3 or 4 enervations followed by a circle of death...there might be some balance issues.

Well, the key word here IS 'Veteran.' If just any fighter inexperienced in leading troops in battle (which is what the knowledge skills are for) could get in, it would lose all its meaning.

Sure, but...20th level? 32 ranks of cross-class skills? I see what you're trying to do, and I agree with the theory behind it, but it works out to being pretty excessive. When it's easier to qualify for a PrC by taking levels in a completely unrelated class, I tend to think that there might be a problem with the entry requirements.

The beginning of the chapter does state that "The following prestige classes are available to all characters, though they have certain qualities that make them particularly attractive to villains." These are detailed in the background section of each PrC.

Actually, I meant that as a positive thing. Not Blatantly and Inherently Eeevil = more useful for DMs.

That's what makes it cursed!

Well, sure. I'm pretty against 'no saving throw' effects in general, especialyl mind-affecting ones (the only mind-affecting spell without a saving throw that I can think of offhand is geas). It's not terrible, it just needed more explanation. Is it an exception to the rule that magical arrows are destroyed when they hit their target? Does the destruction of the arrow mean that the archer does not need to go retrieve it?

Note that the undead templates are generally designed to turn villains into more powerful versions of those undead. They aren't simply "renamed."

You're right - I need to correct that, because each template does add some unique ablities not present in the lesser forms.

You did a good review, in my opinion. However, I do feel that it seems a little too focused on what you saw as glitches in the rules, without focusing on the real core of the book - the first five chapters that detail the core of the villain - his emotions, personality, goals, dreams, scemes etc etc etc.

I think it's these chapters that really help make the book what it is.

I agree, and those chapters are definitely what pull the book upward. I'll see if I can expand on that a bit.

J