Whispers of Death: A Sourcebook for Assassin Characters

[Messageboard Golem]

Steven Gilman from Sundered Blade Games here. I do value the comments on my work in this review, and actually appreciate it. I do want to make a comment on just a few items though.

The first is the ability to feint in combat as a free action. This is only meant to be used once per round, and I suppose should be cleared up in some errata. I didn't even think to mention that since many abilities of classes and prestige classes can be activated as a free action, though none of them really state once per round.

The references to the "non-existant product" are true and false. The referenced product was originally planned for release at the same time as Whispers of Death, but we made some changes to our line of products. After those changes, a revision of the Whispers of Death PDF was released that removed all references to the "non-existant" product, except for the preview at the end of the book.

Also, the item that gives Kalon Fairfield a +4 bonus to his Dexterity is the Shadowblade, which is detailed in the Magic Items section of the book.

The errata for Whispers of Death may also fix some other issues, and can be found at the following URL. It is also important to note that all changes in this errata are reflected in the currently available version of the product:
http://www.sunderedblade.com/d20/resources/woderrata.htm

The web enhancement for the product also provides an alternate table for compensation that may make a little more sense.
http://www.sunderedblade.com/d20/resources/wodcompanion.pdf

 

[dungeondweller]

First off, I am far more often a Dungeon Master than a player, so this review should be considered from that perspective. I cracked open this PDF, "Whispers of Death: A Sourcebook for Assassin Characters", with a bitter taste in my mouth for class sourcebooks in general stemming back to the 2nd Edition everything-gets-its-own-book frenzy. But hope springs eternal and I was looking for some decent Assassin-style Prestige Classes to plug into my running campaign, so I forged forward.

I was confronted first with a professional, clean layout similar to something WotC would produce. The front cover won't win any awards, but to me, the cover only matters until the sale is made. Once I am a customer, it's what's behind the front cover that concerns me. And my first impression was good.

I noted a lack of artwork right off the bat. And I've got one comment in that regard - GREAT! WotC uses far too many fillers and random drawings for my taste. I much prefer to go straight to the meat. Artwork outside of the covers and splash pages gets in the way. So... Once again, pleasantly surprised.

But now the hard part is upon us... I'm highly critical of ALL game content, WotC products included, beyond a game's core rules. So many Prestige Classes are overbalanced and I was expecting the book to fall apart at this point. It didn't. I had assorted gripes, like the DC to avoid an assassin's instant death attack being too high in the upper levels and some of the rules not being quite clear enough in their application, but nothing an experienced DM cannot fix themselves. Impressed, I moved on.

Then it was on to the guilds. I never use content like this from sourcebooks, so I must admit this section got little more than a cursory skimming. From what I could tell, the guilds were rather generic, probably so they can be adapted to someone's running campaign without modification. In this regard, I was not pleasantly surprised. The book delivered nothing more or less than what I expected.

So... I'm nearing the end of the book and the whole thing has fared better than I dared to hope. It appears to be one of the very few sourcebooks (once again, WotC products included) from which I will adapt content for my running campaign. The last several pages serve to solidify that feeling with example characters built from the book's available content. I like this especially because I can examine these characters and see how the numbers actually work out on paper. It was my final game-balance litmus test.

I reach the final page and I go back to the custom spells because I wanted to look at them more closely. Of all the book's content, these will most likely make it to my game first. Every thieves' guild should be an interesting and dangerous place and custom spells are a great help with that. Suffice to say, I liked them quite a bit.

For the purposes of this review, I also examined the page count, the actual content of the book, and the RPGNow.COM price and found them in line. (Page counts are deceptive because they do not represent the amount of good content in a book!) I really don't care if you can buy some other PDF with 180 pages for $7.50 (see other reviews for this product), it's all about cost versus usable content. And, in that regard, the book does well.

Lastly, and most importantly, something remarkable happened while I was reading through the PDF. I was thinking of the thieves' guild with which my PC's are currently in a tangle and I was inspired to the point of breaking out my DM's pad and scribbling down some ideas and a custom spell of my own. From my perspective, that is the absolute most valuable property of a sourcebook. Give me unique, interesting ideas that I can apply to my D&D game and you've won my heart, which, in the end, this book managed to do...

To summarize my ramblings, I will say this: "Whispers of Death: A Sourcebook for Assassin Characters" is a sourcebook well worth its price. It deserves a solid 4/5; A full 5, as I see it, being the absolute best a book can be. I would most certainly buy similar content from this publisher for the same price in the future - without hesitation.