John Cooper
Explorer
The Quintessential Drow
Mongoose Publishing product number MGP 4018
Sam Witt
128 pages, $21.95
I should preface this review by stating that The Quintessential Drow is the only book in the "Collector Series" that I have ever read, so this won't be a comparison to others in the series. Rather, it's based on my impressions on how well the author covers the material.
The short version: author Sam Witt breathes some new life into the oft-overused drow, but does so in a way that does not conflict with the "drow lore" that has come before. And while there were several sections in the book that I had some problems with, I still think this is an above-average work worthy of note.
The longer version: let's start with the artwork. Mongoose regular Anne Stokes is credited with the "cover art." I don't know if this is a joke or if that's just meant to mean that she came up with the concept (or layout) of the "Collector Series," but all the "cover art" consists of is a fake-leather design, apparently patterned after TSR's "The Complete Book of _______" series. The artwork on the inside consists of black-and-white illustrations by 6 different artists. Most of these pieces are above average, and most seem tailor-made to the subject at hand. By this, I mean these look to be specifically-commisioned pieces: in the same section describing drow bone blades - bone projections coming from a surgically-altered ("fleshcrafted") drow's arms or legs - is a picture of such a drow in mid-leap. The two main exceptions to this are the sections on character concepts and prestige classes: there, it seems like they took a random pile of drow character illustrations and matched them up as well as possible. "Let's see, here's a scantily-clad female drow; let's use her for the Consort. Here's a female drow with her mouth open; close enough - she can be the Dirge Singer. We need a Tithe Taker, a specialist trained in subduing enemies without marking their bodies; oh well, this armored drow guy with spikes sticking out all over the place will just have to do." Not that this artwork (all apparently done by the same artist, judging by the style) is bad, merely not always appropriate for the character being depicted. Also, the artist seems to have an inordinate fascination with ripped, jagged-egded clothing.
As for the writing, Sam Witt has done an outstanding job of capturing the "feel" of the drow and (to borrow - and twist - a phrase by popular TV chef Emeril) "crank the evil up a notch." He has an elegant writing style (the book is interspersed throughout with relevant snatches of fiction, each appropriate to the current subject at hand), and he always seems able to take the logic of an admittedly fantasy-based premise and run with it. Also, the proofreader, Ashley Tarmin, has done an above-average job: as far as common errors go (misspelled or missing words, incorrect punctuation, simple typos), I found only as many in this 128-page work as I usually notice in a 32-page "Slayer's Guide" or 64-page "Encyclopaedia Arcane." Good job, and I hope this trend continues!
The Quintessential Drow is laid out as follows:
The new spells, feats, items, character concepts, and prestige classes are all well-suited for the drow, meaning they're appropriately creepy and occasionally disgusting (as they should be!). I know some people despised the AD&D character kits, but I found the Character Concepts section to be for the most part appropriate and well-balanced. I did have a few minor quibbles, though. First, the Demonseed seemed for the most part to be the Half-Fiend template under another name. I think the Liberated Slave's disadvantage (-1 to Will saves) to be nowhere worth its advantage (3 extra hit points from the Toughness feat), especially since this is more than likely a fighter-type character who tends to do just fine in the hp department and already has Will as its weakest save. Finally (and this is more an observation than a quibble), I was amused to see that the Character Concept that appealed to me the most - a drow who was abandoned as a youth and had to raise himself out on the streets, growing up to be exceptionally sneaky as a result - was called the Weakling. I somehow doubt that many players will be clamoring to get to play "the Weakling!" (I think I'll rename it "the Abandoned" or "the Streetwise" for my campaign.)
The prestige classes are similarly well done for the most part, although I noticed despite the "v3.5 Compatible" on the front cover, the Blinded has a prerequisite of "Intuit Direction: 5 ranks." (Still, to be fair, it does say "compatible," not "converted," and it's easy enough to ignore the prerequisite if playing in a 3.5 campaign.)
As for some of the new drow concepts, there were a couple sections here that I think could have used a little more work. The whole fleshcrafting idea seems like it was ported over directly from the xixchil, those praying mantis creatures from the old Spelljammer setting. This isn't a problem, though, as I can easily envision the drow getting up to such body-altering shenanigans. However, I found it odd (and against the stated d20 goal of "high numbers are always good") that when rolling to see whether a given fleshcrafting operation (body alteration) stays in place or is rejected by the host body, you have to fail a Fortitude save. In other words, roll high = bad (the fleshcrafting you paid for goes away and you're out all of that money and pain), roll low = good. This also means that if you want to have the best chance of not wasting your money in signing up for a fleshcrafter to do some body work on you, you should really do it when you're low-level (and thus have a lower Fortitude save, and therefore are more likely to fail the reversion save) - however, at lower levels, you're much less likely to be able to afford the high prices a fleshcrafter charges! Sort of a Catch-22 thing going on here.
There are some other problems with the fleshcrafting concept as written. Here's a quote from page 55: "Fleshcrafters may not Take 10 or Take 20 on Craft (flesh) skill checks unless they possess the appropriate feat or class ability (see Drow Feats and The Prestige Drow for more information.)" Unfortunately, there is no more information listed in either the Drow Feats section or any of the prestige class descriptions (including the 5-level Fleshcrafter PrC, where you'd think for sure such class abilities would show up, if anywhere). This is also true of the venomous blisters, which allows for a poisonous bite (if the modified drow has the Biter feat, which unfortunately is not described in the book). Another quote, from page 63: "Fleshcrafters normally charge 1000 gp per rank they possess in the Craft (flesh) skill per day required for the operation. Thus, a fleshcrafter with 15 ranks in the Craft (flesh) skill adding a set of poison filters to a drow assassin (15 ranks times 500 gp) for three days (DC 15 divided by 5), for a total of 7,500 gp for the operation." The problems with this example: 1] that should be 15 ranks times 1,000 gp, not 500 gp; 2] poison filters have a stated DC of 25, not 15; 3] the rules state that a fleshcrafting operation takes a full day per 5 points in the DC, so the poison filters should take five days to install, not three; 4] no matter which way you do the math, you don't get 7,500 gp. Using the numbers in the example provided, you get 15 times 500 gp times 3 = 22,500 gp. Using the correct numbers, you get 15 times 1,000 gp times 5 = 75,000 gp.
Finally, even after you've plunked down your outrageous sum of money and made it past the possibility of reversion by successfully failing your Fortitude check, your funky new abilities come saddled with disadvantages of their own. Those poison filters in the example above sure sound nice (granting a +2 to saves against poison), but there's a 10% chance per day that you'll be at -2 to Strength and Intelligence for the next 24 hours as your fancy new filters remove vital nutrients from your blood. For this I paid 75,000 gp?
Another cool concept that was partially bungled was that of the Gravebond. I really like the idea of a drow killing a victim and then imprisoning the departing soul, using it to fuel extra powers for the drow such as extra spell levels/day, converting spell levels to emergency hit points, augmenting barbaric damage reduction, and so on. However, the gravebond spell refers you to the Gravebond section (p. 66-75), and on page 67 of that section it refers you back to the spell: "Work out the results of that spell as detailed in the Drow Spells chapter." Sadly, there are no such details in the Drow Spells chapter - or perhaps I should say that as the gravebond spell is permanent, allows for no saving throw, and spell resistance does not apply to it, there's really not anything to work out. In addition, on page 67 under "Transferring the Gravebond" it refers to the target paying the xp cost for the gravebond spell and the mage who cast the spell having his xp restored by a similar amount. However - you guessed it - there's no mention of an xp cost in the spell description.
The new spiders are very cool - about half of them are standard monsters with a Monster Manual-style stat listing (in 3.0 format, I might add), and the others are noncombatants but grant the drow "wearing" them cool powers. I particularly like the latter concept; it's very clever and adds some new surprises the DM can throw at his players.
I really had some major problems with the Silken Strongholds chapter. It starts out okay, with a description of the different materials drow use to build their cities - not surprisingly, many of them are woven from spider silk (hence the chapter's title) - but then all of a sudden everything switches and we're suddenly being told about "the fighter's stronghold" and the additional expenses incurred in building a stronghold in difficult terrain like mountains, swamps, or deserts. Since when do the drow - who live exclusively underground - build desert or swampland strongholds? And who's this "fighter" we keep hearing about? Since The Quintessential Drow is the only book I own (or have read) in the "Collector Series," I can't confirm it but I wouldn't be surprised at all if a good chunk of this chapter was taken directly from The Quintessential Fighter. If this is true, it would explain quite a bit; even if not, much of this chapter reads like "copy and paste" filler from some other work. There are also a few other mistakes in the chapter: the spider webs used to create some drow cities grow stronger over the years. Okay, cool concept. They start out with 20% of the structure points of stone and gain an additional 1% each year. Okay, sounds good. "This does not increase indefinitely - if a building persists for 100 years, it will 'max out' at having 115% of the structural points of the same type of building constructed from stone." Uh, no. 20% + (100 times 1%) = 120%. Major error, making the section unusable? By no means. Irritating error that should have been caught and fixed? Oh my yes. Final quibble in this section: why would a drow structure made mostly of time-hardened spider webs require the services of an engineer or lose 1d6 Structure Points each month? The rules say this is the case, but they also say that the omnipresent spiders forever crawling over every web-surface are constantly adding webbing to the structures (this is part of the reason the webs grow stronger each year until they rival and eventually surpass the hardness of stone). What's an engineer going to add to the equation? In a typical human stone castle/keep (which I suspect is where this rule was taken from and plopped into the book), I could see it. In a drow web-structure, it just doesn't make much sense.
Still, despite the occasional patch of conflicting or missing material, this is a very cool book full of all sorts of great ideas appropriate to a race as evil and twisted as the drow. Also, the book serves equally well as a player aid (for those wishing to play drow PCs) and a DM tool (for those DMs wishing to make drow a force to be reckoned with in their Underdark adventures). The book's problems drag the rating down to a low "4" (good), but it's still well above an average "3."
Mongoose Publishing product number MGP 4018
Sam Witt
128 pages, $21.95
I should preface this review by stating that The Quintessential Drow is the only book in the "Collector Series" that I have ever read, so this won't be a comparison to others in the series. Rather, it's based on my impressions on how well the author covers the material.
The short version: author Sam Witt breathes some new life into the oft-overused drow, but does so in a way that does not conflict with the "drow lore" that has come before. And while there were several sections in the book that I had some problems with, I still think this is an above-average work worthy of note.
The longer version: let's start with the artwork. Mongoose regular Anne Stokes is credited with the "cover art." I don't know if this is a joke or if that's just meant to mean that she came up with the concept (or layout) of the "Collector Series," but all the "cover art" consists of is a fake-leather design, apparently patterned after TSR's "The Complete Book of _______" series. The artwork on the inside consists of black-and-white illustrations by 6 different artists. Most of these pieces are above average, and most seem tailor-made to the subject at hand. By this, I mean these look to be specifically-commisioned pieces: in the same section describing drow bone blades - bone projections coming from a surgically-altered ("fleshcrafted") drow's arms or legs - is a picture of such a drow in mid-leap. The two main exceptions to this are the sections on character concepts and prestige classes: there, it seems like they took a random pile of drow character illustrations and matched them up as well as possible. "Let's see, here's a scantily-clad female drow; let's use her for the Consort. Here's a female drow with her mouth open; close enough - she can be the Dirge Singer. We need a Tithe Taker, a specialist trained in subduing enemies without marking their bodies; oh well, this armored drow guy with spikes sticking out all over the place will just have to do." Not that this artwork (all apparently done by the same artist, judging by the style) is bad, merely not always appropriate for the character being depicted. Also, the artist seems to have an inordinate fascination with ripped, jagged-egded clothing.
As for the writing, Sam Witt has done an outstanding job of capturing the "feel" of the drow and (to borrow - and twist - a phrase by popular TV chef Emeril) "crank the evil up a notch." He has an elegant writing style (the book is interspersed throughout with relevant snatches of fiction, each appropriate to the current subject at hand), and he always seems able to take the logic of an admittedly fantasy-based premise and run with it. Also, the proofreader, Ashley Tarmin, has done an above-average job: as far as common errors go (misspelled or missing words, incorrect punctuation, simple typos), I found only as many in this 128-page work as I usually notice in a 32-page "Slayer's Guide" or 64-page "Encyclopaedia Arcane." Good job, and I hope this trend continues!
The Quintessential Drow is laid out as follows:
- Introduction: a brief intro to the drow and the "Collector Series" of books
- Character Concepts: 8 ideas for making a different background for your drow character, including advantages and disadvantages (these are rather like the "kit" concept from AD&D 2nd Edition)
- The Prestige Drow: 7 prestige classes for drow characters
- Tricks of the Drow: rules for drow seduction, torture, tailoring potions to individuals, and slave training
- Drow Feats: 11 new feats
- Tools of the Drow: 11 new drow weapons, 7 new nonmagical tools, 8 new armor types, and 6 new magic items
- Drow Spells: 12 new drow spells
- Fleshcrafting: the concept of surgical body alteration, from changing eye color to grafting weapons onto limbs or grafting on entire new limbs
- The Gravebond: using stolen life-energy from the recently-dead to gain power
- Religion of Horrors: 4 drow deities
- The Game of Bones: the drow concept of competition and interspecies warfare so prevalent in their chaotic society
- Arachnophilia: 11 new arachnoid monsters
- Silken Strongholds: drow cities and individual buildings
- Designer's Notes: Sam Witt's views on the drow
- Index: I'm sure you know what an index is
- Drow Character Sheet: 4-page character sheet for recording everything you'd ever need to know about your drow PC
The new spells, feats, items, character concepts, and prestige classes are all well-suited for the drow, meaning they're appropriately creepy and occasionally disgusting (as they should be!). I know some people despised the AD&D character kits, but I found the Character Concepts section to be for the most part appropriate and well-balanced. I did have a few minor quibbles, though. First, the Demonseed seemed for the most part to be the Half-Fiend template under another name. I think the Liberated Slave's disadvantage (-1 to Will saves) to be nowhere worth its advantage (3 extra hit points from the Toughness feat), especially since this is more than likely a fighter-type character who tends to do just fine in the hp department and already has Will as its weakest save. Finally (and this is more an observation than a quibble), I was amused to see that the Character Concept that appealed to me the most - a drow who was abandoned as a youth and had to raise himself out on the streets, growing up to be exceptionally sneaky as a result - was called the Weakling. I somehow doubt that many players will be clamoring to get to play "the Weakling!" (I think I'll rename it "the Abandoned" or "the Streetwise" for my campaign.)
The prestige classes are similarly well done for the most part, although I noticed despite the "v3.5 Compatible" on the front cover, the Blinded has a prerequisite of "Intuit Direction: 5 ranks." (Still, to be fair, it does say "compatible," not "converted," and it's easy enough to ignore the prerequisite if playing in a 3.5 campaign.)
As for some of the new drow concepts, there were a couple sections here that I think could have used a little more work. The whole fleshcrafting idea seems like it was ported over directly from the xixchil, those praying mantis creatures from the old Spelljammer setting. This isn't a problem, though, as I can easily envision the drow getting up to such body-altering shenanigans. However, I found it odd (and against the stated d20 goal of "high numbers are always good") that when rolling to see whether a given fleshcrafting operation (body alteration) stays in place or is rejected by the host body, you have to fail a Fortitude save. In other words, roll high = bad (the fleshcrafting you paid for goes away and you're out all of that money and pain), roll low = good. This also means that if you want to have the best chance of not wasting your money in signing up for a fleshcrafter to do some body work on you, you should really do it when you're low-level (and thus have a lower Fortitude save, and therefore are more likely to fail the reversion save) - however, at lower levels, you're much less likely to be able to afford the high prices a fleshcrafter charges! Sort of a Catch-22 thing going on here.
There are some other problems with the fleshcrafting concept as written. Here's a quote from page 55: "Fleshcrafters may not Take 10 or Take 20 on Craft (flesh) skill checks unless they possess the appropriate feat or class ability (see Drow Feats and The Prestige Drow for more information.)" Unfortunately, there is no more information listed in either the Drow Feats section or any of the prestige class descriptions (including the 5-level Fleshcrafter PrC, where you'd think for sure such class abilities would show up, if anywhere). This is also true of the venomous blisters, which allows for a poisonous bite (if the modified drow has the Biter feat, which unfortunately is not described in the book). Another quote, from page 63: "Fleshcrafters normally charge 1000 gp per rank they possess in the Craft (flesh) skill per day required for the operation. Thus, a fleshcrafter with 15 ranks in the Craft (flesh) skill adding a set of poison filters to a drow assassin (15 ranks times 500 gp) for three days (DC 15 divided by 5), for a total of 7,500 gp for the operation." The problems with this example: 1] that should be 15 ranks times 1,000 gp, not 500 gp; 2] poison filters have a stated DC of 25, not 15; 3] the rules state that a fleshcrafting operation takes a full day per 5 points in the DC, so the poison filters should take five days to install, not three; 4] no matter which way you do the math, you don't get 7,500 gp. Using the numbers in the example provided, you get 15 times 500 gp times 3 = 22,500 gp. Using the correct numbers, you get 15 times 1,000 gp times 5 = 75,000 gp.
Finally, even after you've plunked down your outrageous sum of money and made it past the possibility of reversion by successfully failing your Fortitude check, your funky new abilities come saddled with disadvantages of their own. Those poison filters in the example above sure sound nice (granting a +2 to saves against poison), but there's a 10% chance per day that you'll be at -2 to Strength and Intelligence for the next 24 hours as your fancy new filters remove vital nutrients from your blood. For this I paid 75,000 gp?
Another cool concept that was partially bungled was that of the Gravebond. I really like the idea of a drow killing a victim and then imprisoning the departing soul, using it to fuel extra powers for the drow such as extra spell levels/day, converting spell levels to emergency hit points, augmenting barbaric damage reduction, and so on. However, the gravebond spell refers you to the Gravebond section (p. 66-75), and on page 67 of that section it refers you back to the spell: "Work out the results of that spell as detailed in the Drow Spells chapter." Sadly, there are no such details in the Drow Spells chapter - or perhaps I should say that as the gravebond spell is permanent, allows for no saving throw, and spell resistance does not apply to it, there's really not anything to work out. In addition, on page 67 under "Transferring the Gravebond" it refers to the target paying the xp cost for the gravebond spell and the mage who cast the spell having his xp restored by a similar amount. However - you guessed it - there's no mention of an xp cost in the spell description.
The new spiders are very cool - about half of them are standard monsters with a Monster Manual-style stat listing (in 3.0 format, I might add), and the others are noncombatants but grant the drow "wearing" them cool powers. I particularly like the latter concept; it's very clever and adds some new surprises the DM can throw at his players.
I really had some major problems with the Silken Strongholds chapter. It starts out okay, with a description of the different materials drow use to build their cities - not surprisingly, many of them are woven from spider silk (hence the chapter's title) - but then all of a sudden everything switches and we're suddenly being told about "the fighter's stronghold" and the additional expenses incurred in building a stronghold in difficult terrain like mountains, swamps, or deserts. Since when do the drow - who live exclusively underground - build desert or swampland strongholds? And who's this "fighter" we keep hearing about? Since The Quintessential Drow is the only book I own (or have read) in the "Collector Series," I can't confirm it but I wouldn't be surprised at all if a good chunk of this chapter was taken directly from The Quintessential Fighter. If this is true, it would explain quite a bit; even if not, much of this chapter reads like "copy and paste" filler from some other work. There are also a few other mistakes in the chapter: the spider webs used to create some drow cities grow stronger over the years. Okay, cool concept. They start out with 20% of the structure points of stone and gain an additional 1% each year. Okay, sounds good. "This does not increase indefinitely - if a building persists for 100 years, it will 'max out' at having 115% of the structural points of the same type of building constructed from stone." Uh, no. 20% + (100 times 1%) = 120%. Major error, making the section unusable? By no means. Irritating error that should have been caught and fixed? Oh my yes. Final quibble in this section: why would a drow structure made mostly of time-hardened spider webs require the services of an engineer or lose 1d6 Structure Points each month? The rules say this is the case, but they also say that the omnipresent spiders forever crawling over every web-surface are constantly adding webbing to the structures (this is part of the reason the webs grow stronger each year until they rival and eventually surpass the hardness of stone). What's an engineer going to add to the equation? In a typical human stone castle/keep (which I suspect is where this rule was taken from and plopped into the book), I could see it. In a drow web-structure, it just doesn't make much sense.
Still, despite the occasional patch of conflicting or missing material, this is a very cool book full of all sorts of great ideas appropriate to a race as evil and twisted as the drow. Also, the book serves equally well as a player aid (for those wishing to play drow PCs) and a DM tool (for those DMs wishing to make drow a force to be reckoned with in their Underdark adventures). The book's problems drag the rating down to a low "4" (good), but it's still well above an average "3."
