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Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft - A Grognard Finally Reads It (Review)
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<blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 8874972" data-attributes="member: 6915329"><p>Aaand way to ignore everything else I wrote. Or even the actual VGR, because the book doesn't say "use the spy entry." It says "has stats similar to the spy entry." As in, use this as the base power level, make her how you want. She doesn't have 15 HD and a greatsword. Also, Adam was <em>barely </em>a Darklord. He didn't even do anything evil beyond scare someone unintentionally, and he only wanted to be left alone. Even the Black Box says that the Dark Powers were more interested in Victor. </p><p></p><p>Also, Adam's stats were pretty dull in 2e as well. No special attacks, only special defense was that you needed a +1 weapon to hit him. He was just a combat monster. Even the basic 5e flesh golem is more interesting than he was.</p><p></p><p>So you want Viktra's? OK, cool. What is she? Are you going to make her a full-fledged artificer? Or will she not have any class abilities and just have special abilities you think are cool? I'm pretty sure that most people will have different ideas of what they want out of her.</p><p></p><p>And do we <em>really </em>need a sample Darklord statblock? Waaaay back when I bought the Black Box, probably in '92 or so, young me thought that Ivan Dilysnia was terrible for a villain because he was a 0th-level human. Even a 1st- or 2nd-level character could take him out in a heartbeat! While I realized that he'd have minions, he was still so physically weak that when anyone made it past his minions, or got him through assassination, he would still be super easy to kill. </p><p></p><p>I eventually realized three things: One, the Darklords are <em>not </em>for regular combat. They're set pieces; they're the reason the domain is the way that it is. Two, that they should be exactly as powerful as I need them to be to make them interesting, on the off-chance that I'm actually going to use them in a game (which I never have, so far, because there's far more interesting things to do in each domain). And Three, that <em>what </em>the Darklords are, in terms of their statblock, isn't as interesting as who they are and why they became Darklords (and to be honest, a lot of them had really boring reasons for becoming Darklords).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Faolyn, post: 8874972, member: 6915329"] Aaand way to ignore everything else I wrote. Or even the actual VGR, because the book doesn't say "use the spy entry." It says "has stats similar to the spy entry." As in, use this as the base power level, make her how you want. She doesn't have 15 HD and a greatsword. Also, Adam was [I]barely [/I]a Darklord. He didn't even do anything evil beyond scare someone unintentionally, and he only wanted to be left alone. Even the Black Box says that the Dark Powers were more interested in Victor. Also, Adam's stats were pretty dull in 2e as well. No special attacks, only special defense was that you needed a +1 weapon to hit him. He was just a combat monster. Even the basic 5e flesh golem is more interesting than he was. So you want Viktra's? OK, cool. What is she? Are you going to make her a full-fledged artificer? Or will she not have any class abilities and just have special abilities you think are cool? I'm pretty sure that most people will have different ideas of what they want out of her. And do we [I]really [/I]need a sample Darklord statblock? Waaaay back when I bought the Black Box, probably in '92 or so, young me thought that Ivan Dilysnia was terrible for a villain because he was a 0th-level human. Even a 1st- or 2nd-level character could take him out in a heartbeat! While I realized that he'd have minions, he was still so physically weak that when anyone made it past his minions, or got him through assassination, he would still be super easy to kill. I eventually realized three things: One, the Darklords are [I]not [/I]for regular combat. They're set pieces; they're the reason the domain is the way that it is. Two, that they should be exactly as powerful as I need them to be to make them interesting, on the off-chance that I'm actually going to use them in a game (which I never have, so far, because there's far more interesting things to do in each domain). And Three, that [I]what [/I]the Darklords are, in terms of their statblock, isn't as interesting as who they are and why they became Darklords (and to be honest, a lot of them had really boring reasons for becoming Darklords). [/QUOTE]
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