REVIEW: Villain's Design Handbook (Kenzer)

[Orclicker]

I guess it was just jarring to see that in the midst of some otherwise well done advice.

I wrote this section which was not meant to insult you or other experienced DMs, but to offer a little bit of basic advice to new DMs. And since this book is meant for DMs (although there is a lot of material for players) we had to cover the basics but decided to do so in a minimal way.

As for the Vetran Officer, as you noted a human fighter with a +1 bonus to int can enter the PrC at 10th level. This is what we were aiming at since 10th level indicates a vetran status and the +1 bonus means that the character in question is a cut above the rest mening that they were officer material. Non human races (with a +1 bonus) could enter as early as 13th level, and multiclass characters could enter as early as 6th level. So all things considered I still think that the entry requirements are decent for someone trained to lead troops.

 

[Orclicker]

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

Actually that isn't quite correct. It would take a total of 40 skill points, but you forgot to take into consideration the x4 multipler for first level. so a non human fighter without an Int bonus could have all of the requirements at 17th level. I know that this seems excessive but as I mentioned before this class wasn't designed with the stereotypical dumb fighter in mind.

 

[Rune]

Sounds good to me. Obviously, the best way to go about picking up the prestige class is a fighter/rogue multiclass, which suits my concept of veteren officer just fine.

 

[Orclicker]

There is another review of the book here:
http://www.dmshaven.freeservers.com/kenzer.html