So did anyone buy Champions of Ruin?

[Arnwyn]

I've been playing FR since 3e, and have a dozen or so of the setting sourcebooks, but the hype on these three has somehow eluded me (I assume they're big wheels from pre-3e days).

Bingo.

What does mean to be epic-level if you still can't put the kibosh on major evils?

That's fine and dandy. The complaints are that the EEE are too low in the epic range.

He said that Mask was worried about him. Deities can worry about the activities of a CR 20ish being's activities.

No, he didn't. If you read above, he said that Mask was "afraid" of him. Which is correct. It's made clear in the original source material.

I get the tyr fenris wolf part, but what does chasing mask rip off? The wolves chasing the sun and moon in norse mythology? The hound who always catches running after the fox who always gets away who were struck into stone by Zeus to end the paradox? Something else I'm just not seeing?

Nah, you're just taking it way too far. Powerful god-like wolf, bites deity's hand, bunch of gods chain the wolf... close enough to be considered a rip-off (it was just all part of the same story that included Mask running away from the wolf). Joe's right.

 

[Krafus]

I'm still debating getting this or not. The stated reasons from Rich Baker for them making the Elder Eternal Evils so weak was, more or less, so as to make them attractive and valid targets for 20th level or so PCs. That design philosophy, and the shafting of the flavor and mythology surrounding the critters in order to seemingly kowtow to powergamers may end up costing them a sale from me, but I'll still give the book a look when I see it in the store and I might still consider buying it.

Great. This is one book I won't be buying, certainly. I was looking forward to the Elder Eternal Evils and other nasties' stats, but with those piddly CRs designed for powergamers, I'll pass. This reminds me of Hollywood execs lobotomizing movies so they can get a damn PG-13 rating.

 

[Felon]

Kezef is constantly and continually chasing Mask across the planes, and Mask is running away from him because he cannot kill him. Kezef bit Tyr's hand off, and Tyr can't regenerate the hand. It took the collective strength of several gods (some of them greater powers) to temporarily imprison Kezef, before (IIRC) Cyric released him. So, Kezef should be more powerful than all Faerunian gods, individually.

I see. Thanks for the info.

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

I'm still not really sure what this book actually is (and I've read the outline on the Wizards site!). What is it for? Is it any good, dodgy CRs aside?

The weird thing is I was going to buy this -- I have all the other 3.x FR books and run a game in FR -- and not Heroes of Battle. I feel like I have a decent grasp of what Heroes of Battle is and it sounds pretty good. I haven't a clue whether I should buy Champions of Ruin.

Any advice gratefully received.

Cheers


Richard

PS I have and like the Book of Vile Darkness

 

[Nightfall]

This book is kind BoVD lite for the Realms. Mostly it's even CRUDDIER than BoVD was. I'd pass on it unless you are serious fan of the realms.

I was hoping for insights in demon/devil/arch fiend cults. All we got was this crud.

I'd like to also say I liked parts of BoVD...but this isn't even close to being as good. (Variance on the word good in a comparative sense folks. Good in terms of "BoVD covered subject matter that was directly related to D&D standard/Greyhawk and was decent in that aspect." )

 

[Darth K'Trava]

I know my FR DM will buy a copy. But then he buys a copy of ALL of WOTC's books.

 

[BobROE]

Great. This is one book I won't be buying, certainly. I was looking forward to the Elder Eternal Evils and other nasties' stats, but with those piddly CRs designed for powergamers, I'll pass. This reminds me of Hollywood execs lobotomizing movies so they can get a damn PG-13 rating.

Ok, can someone tell me why you want stats for creatures if they're suppose to have a CR in the 70's (or whatever)? I agree that based on their mythologies the CR/power level is probably low (except maybe the Elf Eater, it never seemed on the same level as the other two). But what good are stats for creatures with CR's that high?
Especially if you consider it from a usefulness (and use = sales) perspective.

 

[Alzrius]

Ok, can someone tell me why you want stats for creatures if they're suppose to have a CR in the 70's (or whatever)? I agree that based on their mythologies the CR/power level is probably low (except maybe the Elf Eater, it never seemed on the same level as the other two). But what good are stats for creatures with CR's that high?
Especially if you consider it from a usefulness (and use = sales) perspective.

Personally, I think it'd be appropriate to have their CR's be at the levels suggested by previous products (that is, Kezef should be roughly equal to an Intermediate power, and Dendar a Greater power).

As for why? Well, it shows that there is more to the world than just the PCs for one thing. Seriously, there should simply be some evils that the PCs can't beat, at least not without hitting the uber-epic levels. It's not expected that they'll go around killing gods, so it shouldn't be expected that they'll be killing the anti-god monsters either. Likewise, it'd be nice to have stats for creatures like those around so that, every once in a while, you can have them make a cameo of sorts to remind the PCs that while they're big fish, there are always much bigger ones.

Likewise, that wouldn't even be the first time WotC has printed stats for "monsters" that are basically unkillable. Just look at D&Dg and F&P.

 

[Jorren]

I was rather disappointed with Champions of Ruin. The information is sparse compared to previous FR hardbacks. If you have a choice, pick up Lords of Darkness instead. I found that book ten times more useful from a DMs perspective. Champions of Ruin attempts to be a player-oriented book in terms of integrating evil characters and organizations into a PC party structure, but it really just ends up as the usual Feats + Spells +PrCs + Monsters.

Additionally, way too much space was taken up with Evil Nodes, something that I believe is of limited utility considering they have been discussed in previous books to some extent.

Again, Lords of Darkness is a much better guide for running evil PCs and NPCs.

 

[Shemeska]

Ok, can someone tell me why you want stats for creatures if they're suppose to have a CR in the 70's (or whatever)? I agree that based on their mythologies the CR/power level is probably low (except maybe the Elf Eater, it never seemed on the same level as the other two). But what good are stats for creatures with CR's that high?
Especially if you consider it from a usefulness (and use = sales) perspective.

Personally I'd prefer no real stat block beyond a description of some of their abilities. But since stats were given I want them to reflect the creature's history and presence within the setting and be on par with the (equally misguided) stats given for the deities that are afraid of them and have never done more than temporarily contain them for a time.

Ideally I'd leave deific level beings (deities, major archfiends, slaad lords, FRs Elder Eternal Evils, etc) without stats rather than making them lame, watered down versions dressed up on a silver platter for PCs to kill.