So... how 'bout that Vecna article!

[Nemesis Destiny]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Vecna!)

Amid the news of the bomb dropped today in Ampersand, I see nothing posted here about the Vecna article.

I read it. Not bad. Has some juicy feats and flavour-rific background. Comments?

 

[Aegeri]

This is a very good article, but once again I am just not sure why authors (or maybe it is wizards) are so afraid to back things up with good mechanical crunch. Command Undead for example is a standard action, targets one undead creature and immobilizes + damaging aura effect. The problem with this is high level undead can teleport in many cases. So what happens is that it teleports next to your allies and suddenly they end up with a pretty nasty effect. At epic, that's 20 damage to your allies if they hang around that creature. It also dissuades your melee allies from getting near it and so I just can't quite fathom the point of this power. As a minor action it could be okay and if the damage was enemies only, it would actually be really good. As is for a standard action it's not a good use of your round.

The necrotic resistance reducing feat is similarly strange. Most equivalent feats just remove the resistance entirely and not just reduce it by a small number. It would be nice if this feat had two changes: Firstly removing the restriction to vecna only and making it just plain negate resistance. If it can't negate resistance, make it scale. 5 at heroic, 10 at paragon and 15 by epic. That would be decent and give necrotic some real credibility against an undead themed campaign. Plus there are some classes, like the Dark Pact Warlock (remember him!?) who would really appreciate it.

The highlight though was the Channel Divinity power that is an immediate interrupt. That's a great, flavorful and mechanically useful power. It gives a divine character of vecna a good option for using an offensive channel divinity power in an encounter without undead. It can grant an attack to an ally or use a particularly useful monsters power. Just so solid and A+. Please more of this in future articles! It's not even broken or imbalanced, just a good choice!

Edit: People reading my recent posts must so think I just rag on wizards for the sake of it. I'm honestly not so entirely negative and pessimistic, I just want to see a good standard of quality and more useful options added. If Wizards are going to publish less stuff - let's face it this is the way it looks to be going - I just want more of what they do publish to be really good. It's a bit depressing to see articles with feats that aren't even equivalent in power to other existing feats that do the same job. Especially with heavy restrictions on them or particularly weak effects.

 

[LightPhoenix]

That skill power feat is just terrible. It would be nicer if it had a second effect on it. I'd go for something like a re-roll for a skill check on those skills.

 

[Mengu]

First looked at the crunch. Vecna's Final Command is nice for those classes without an impressive CD. The rest looks poor.

Then looked at the fluff. The Whispered Commandments are neat, lots of RP potential there. The "unaligned" approach is really reaching to make the material available for a regular campaign. You worship an evil god, that's not going to fly with the Cleric of Pelor, or the Paladin of Bahamut, or even the elven ranger who worships Corellon, or really anybody who is "Good". It's an interesting enough read and I might use bits and pieces as ideas for an NPC my players might encounter. But I'm not sure this is player material for the average campaign.

 

[Klaus]

First looked at the crunch. Vecna's Final Command is nice for those classes without an impressive CD. The rest looks poor.

Then looked at the fluff. The Whispered Commandments are neat, lots of RP potential there. The "unaligned" approach is really reaching to make the material available for a regular campaign. You worship an evil god, that's not going to fly with the Cleric of Pelor, or the Paladin of Bahamut, or even the elven ranger who worships Corellon, or really anybody who is "Good". It's an interesting enough read and I might use bits and pieces as ideas for an NPC my players might encounter. But I'm not sure this is player material for the average campaign.

Remember the old D&D comic that Kenzer put out? The main character was a young wizard whose master died at the hands (claws) of evil dragons. The apprentice swore vengeance, and invoked Vecna's name. I thought that very flavorful.

 

[Mengu]

Remember the old D&D comic that Kenzer put out? The main character was a young wizard whose master died at the hands (claws) of evil dragons. The apprentice swore vengeance, and invoked Vecna's name. I thought that very flavorful.

Never saw it, but sounds like a good story for a Wizard|Avenger or something.

 

[Dausuul]

My read can be summed up as: Excellent flavor, crap mechanics, with the exception of Vecna's Final Command which is quite good. Especially in an Essentials party...

(The Master of Secrets feat is ridiculous. A feat that lets you take skill powers as if you were trained in certain skills? Why not just pick up Skill Training? Then you can take powers as if you were trained in that skill, and you'd actually be trained in it too. It seems unlikely that there'd be more than one of those skills that you a) want a skill power from and b) are not trained in.)

 

[Klaus]

Never saw it, but sounds like a good story for a Wizard|Avenger or something.

Yeah, but he wasn't a divine character. Seems like he regarded Vecna as just another of the wizardly gods. I see it kinda like a Greek character saying "by Hades' helmet, he'll pay".

Also, Master of Secrets makes you count as trained in *all* those skills for skill power purposes. Skill Training only nets you one skill.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I read the article and liked it, especially the reference to the Book of Vile Darkness (the mortal Vecna strikes me something like Abdul Alhazred from Lovecraft, and the Book of Vile Darkness could be akin to the Necronomicon). However, I found myself thinking that a lot of this stuff should be under Zehir's purview, and that Zehir would be a better deity of secrets, forbidden knowledge (I heard this story about a snake recommending apples once...), corruption, and embracing the "darkness within."

It's taken me 2+ years to get to this point, but I don't think Vecna makes a great deity. I think he would be great as a being on par with an archdevil or demon prince, a ruthless, scheming demigod constantly searching for that last crucial insight and becoming fully divine. I also like the take where Vecna nearly destroyed himself in whatever disaster left behind only his hand and eye - I say "nearly" because Vecna's will persists in these two relics.

But that's just me. I'm aware that my views are not the most popular ones.

 

[Klaus]

Maybe Zehir had those portfolios... and Vecna stole the secret from him.

As for a demigod on par with archdevils and demon princes, that's Iuz in a nutshell. But with the aggravant that Iuz rules a realm on the mortal world (making him the D&D equivalent to Sauron).