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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010692" data-attributes="member: 18387">By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine RackSizing Up the TargetWilds is a Dungeons & Dragons supplement from Alderac Entertainment Group. This is a 176-page perfect-bound softcover by Gareth Hanrahan, Andrew Hudson, Jeff Ibach, Mike Mearls, Jim Pinto, and Patrick Younts. The cover art by Hethe Srodawa depicts what appears to my eyes to be an elven ranger up a tree, waiting in ambush. Steve Ellis, Lisa Hunt, Marcio Fiorito, and A. Bleys Ingram contribute to the black & white interior art. Wilds retails for $24.95.First BloodWilds is a work along the lines of (and incidentally, a great companion volume to) Bastion Press’ Into the Green, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. Both volumes take a detailed look at the wilderness, but that’s where the similarities end. Where Into the Green concentrated on forested areas, Wilds takes the reader into six different (and difficult) terrains; desert, forest, jungle, marsh, mountain, and tundra. I’m a big fan of the recent series of web articles on Wizards of the Coasts’ site Far Corners of the World, and Wilds is a perfect companion to those articles. If your campaign is stuck in the underground, this book will get you excited about the possibilities of outdoor adventuring again!Wilds is divided into seven chapters, one for each of the terrains covered, plus a chapter on “outdoor survival.” The latter chapter is an introduction to wilderness adventuring, and includes thoughts on how the different classes get along in the wilderness, some new ways of using skills, how some of the existing feats work well for wilderness explorers, five brand new feats based on the character’s background that are useful for wilderness wanderers (Explorer, Frontiersman, Naturalist, Outrider, and Traveler, in case anyone is wondering), and a brief discussion on useful equipment for wilderness adventuring. As much as there is some great material for the players in here, there’s a good bit that is aimed at DMs as well. Bringing the wilderness adventure to life, activities in the wilderness, geography, mapping, ecology (including placing fantastic monsters so that they make sense), how magical creatures interact with the environment, rules for handling hunting for food on the march, weather, building encounter charts, and utilizing the terrain. There are enough nasty little secrets here that your players will be afraid to step outside the door to their homes. Or will they…? The remaining six chapters detail the environments covered by Wilds. In each chapter, the reader will find an overview of the terrain type (and associated sub-types), prestige classes, feats, and spells unique to the environment, and, of course, a selection of monsters that call that terrain home. You also get a unique variant of the ranger for each type of terrain, with skills and abilities that fit the background of the character, and a few unique locales within each terrain. Now, I could end this review right here, but I’m feeling verbose, so I’ll give you a quick look at each chapter.Deserts are the first terrain we’ll explore, and the chapter discusses the various types of deserts, from barchan dunes and salt flats, to wadis and mesas. What’s the difference? Well, you’ll just have to pick up the book to find out, won’t you? You’ll also learn about oases (and the kinds of people or creatures that may be encountered there), desert ruins, and the occasional green place. The DM will find detailed rules for handling thirst and starvation (and I need to point out that these rules do not contradict those found in the Player’s Handbook, but rather, enhance and expand on them), the effects of heat and cold, getting lost, mirages, blindness, sandstorms, and the occasional elemental confluence or disaster (unique to a magical world). This is the home of the desert ranger. There are also five new prestige classes (elemental supplicant, horizon warrior, king of thieves, master of the desert nomads, and sand shaper), 16 new feats (Caravan Master, Closed Mind, Desert Blooded, Distracting Sweep, Dunesliding, No Meat for Buzzards, Sandblast, Son of a Camel, Strike from Ambush, Unwavering Focus, Vicious Mugging, Walk Without Rhythm, Water Sense, Whirling Dervish Attack, Whirling Dervish Technique, and Worm Rider), nine new spells (Al-Khalid’s silken shade, dunewave, forced mirage, greater spirit seal, hydrate, lens of the sun, song of the land, spirit seal, and unsoak), and four new monsters (arcane scarab, elder gnoll, grave salt, and sandworm).Well, after that little jaunt through the desert, it’s nice to come into the cool shade of the forest, is it not? After all, what could possibly happen to us here? Heh, heh. Glad you asked. In the chapter on forests, we learn about the Spirit of the Forest, a semi-sentient entity whose body is literally the forest itself. Usually, visitors rarely notice the spirit, but sometimes it becomes tainted by outside forces. This can change the entire feel of the setting. There are other details about the forest from fey circles to forest cites, and the hazards that the forest may hold; briar patches, trip holes, and perhaps most dangerous of all, forest fires. This is the realm of the woodsman, a ranger skilled in forest survival. You may also meet any of three prestige classes (the alpha, the botamancer, or the nymph-loved), find a few new uses for some familiar skills, learn one of 16 new feats (Branch Walker, Branch Runner, Eyes of the Grig, Flight of Faeries, Forest Stalker, Friendly Scent, Heart of the Forest, Listen to the Whisper of the Forest, Nature Focus, Swift Hunter, The Roots Run Far and Remember Much, Treasures of the Forest, Tree Sleeper, Vine Swinger, Walk of the Dryad, or Woods Speaker), master one of seven new spells (detect fey, first blossoms of spring, last leaves of autumn, lead animals, restore the spirit, taint the spirit, and tree symbiosis), or meet up with one of the five new denizens of the woodlands (the nullhare, the pyrix, the sirine willow, the werechild, or the half-fey).Jungles offer a whole different set of rules. These realms of oppressive heat and humidity hide a variety of flora and fauna, as well as dangers like quicksand, disease, lost lands, and ruined cities long since overgrown by the surrounding green. Here, the beastlord is king among the animals, a ranger more beast than humanoid. There are also three new prestige classes (green mage, master herbalist, and shadow striker), 10 new feats (Branch Walker, Branch Runner, Bushwacker, Cool Blooded, Jungle Veteran, Nowhere Shot, Poison Expert, Poison Master, Vine Swinger, and War Paint), seven new spells (aura of comfort, aura of heat, primal fury, quagmire, snake charm, stream of mud, and viper touch), and five new monsters with which to torment players (mud elemental, piranha, dire piranha, razor bird, and werejaguar).Wading into the marshes, the chapter begins by discussing the two types of swamps (salt-water and freshwater), as well as some of the features and dangers unique to both (like swamp gas, sinkholes, disease, fighting in mud, navigation, the friendly little natives (like leeches and insects) that find you a convenient roost, and the effects of a swamp on the morale of your followers and henchmen. It is here that the swamp ranger makes his home, dwelling among the muck and the mire. There are also the usual offerings of new prestige classes (finder of the lost, flintknife, skiff hunter, and symbiotic champion), feats (Animal Wrestler, Busy Hands, Change Kingdom, Flight of Startled Birds, Flotsam, Ghost of the Mists, Gnat Strike, Good Health, More Than He Can Chew, Pit Fighter’s Introduction, Ready with the Knife, Shadow in the Mists, Snake Handler, Solid Footing, Streaked with Mud, Unappetizing, Water Walker, and Willowshield), spells (animate liquid, forced shape, godmist, lifejump, lighten, solidify mist, spelleech, time track, and wake the filth), and creatures (bog zombie, fetid boar, jussiash, tyrant lizard, and woodreme).We’re coming to the end of our journey, but we still have to cross the mountains. Here, the obvious hazards are avalanches and falling, but there are other, more subtle problems as well. Flat expanses on which to fight are rare, so many battles will be fought on slopes, providing one side or the other with a distinct advantage. Cliffs, volcanoes, and earthquakes are logical hazards, but few people consider the threat of high winds, frigid temperatures, or thin air. Unfortunately for the player characters, Wilds does. Three interesting locations are offered, and then we learn the secrets of the mountaineer, a ranger who is most at home along the rocky crags and high peaks. As with the other chapters, there are also new prestige classes (giant killer, skyseeker, and stone fist defender), feats (Canny Mountaineer, Eyes of the Hawk, Footman’s Nap, Ground Bound Fighter, Improved Rock Throwing, Mountain Guide, Mountain Man, Mountain Veteran, Mountain Walker, Rock Throwing, Roughrider, Slope Fighter, and Warm Blooded), spells (cone of earth, earthen embrace, stone fist, and wind blast), and monsters (lava beast, mountain troll, peak guardian, and thunder spirit).Hey, we’re almost there. We just have to cross this icy tundra and we’ll be home free. Of course, I must warn you that the tundra is among the most dangerous of any of the terrains that we’ve visited. Besides the difficulties of movement, we’ll face dangers like snow blindness, frostbite, and hypothermia, and in the hilly regions, avalanches are a distinct possibility as well. The good news is that tracking gets a little easier, because the tundra is relatively unchanging. There are different kinds of tundra, and each has unique features, like glaciers, ice waterfalls, chasms, and ice bubbles. We may even run across the Dragon’s Graveyard, or the accursed Land of Black Ice. A tundra ranger has agreed to serve as our guide, a woman who is as one with the ice and snow. There’s also the usual assortment of prestige classes (king of winter and snow brother), feats (Bear Skin, Brief Sleep, Crushing Grip, Efficient Metabolism, I Stand Alone, Ice Blood, Light Steps, My Own Best Companion, Second Skin, Shielded Eyes, Snow Blind, and Wind Wise), spells (brittle, contact freeze, freeze venom, ice elemental’s touch, snow blind, and snow storm), and menaces (frost elemental, king caribou, and wendigo).Well, that wraps up our journey. I hope that you’ve found it both enlightening and enjoyable. The next time you have a need to take to the wilderness, I hope you’ll remember some of the things you’ve learned here. Safe travels!Critical HitsTo put it as simply as possible, this is a book that needs to be on the shelf of every DM that plays D&D. For that matter, it should be on the shelf of any d20 System GM. A whole lot of what is covered here is just as useful whether you’re running a high fantasy campaign or your band of d20 Modern mercenaries is slogging through the Cambodian jungle. The more fantastic effects may not be applicable to all settings, but the majority of the feats and all of the details on the various environmental hazards certainly will be! The information contained herein doesn’t replace the Player’s Handbook or the DUNGEON MASTER’S Guide, it supplements them, and does so beautifully!Critical MissesThe two biggest problems with Wilds are the layout, and niggling little things like spelling and grammatical errors. While I like the way the book is presented, there is a one-inch border on the outside of every page that really serves no purpose whatsoever. It’s just a long, ragged-edged strip of gray that leaves less space for quality material. I’d prefer to have either had some sidebars presented throughout the book, or else have had the text extend to the edges of the page (maybe a half- or quarter-inch margin) and cut back on the page count and price.The grammatical and spelling errors are forgivable, but I spotted at least two of them in a brief perusal, and I’m sure there are probably a few others. In one instance, the word “feat” was used where “feet” would have been more appropriate, and in another, the word “that” was used in a context where the author obviously meant “than” (well, there could be a feat called More That He Can Chew, and in fact, the details of the feat are ambiguous enough that both interpretations work, so maybe this wasn’t an error).I love the idea of the rangers specialized to a particular environment, but there is something that DMs need to be aware of and that is that these variants are much more powerful than a standard 3E ranger (the whole of Wilds is written with 3.0 in mind), so consider carefully before just letting your players choose one of there variants. As a personal note, I would also rule that one cannot, multi-class in different terrain types. On the other hand, perhaps a woodsman/mountain man could be entertaining. The choice, as always, is yours.Coup de GraceIf you are a DM, you need this book. Go out and purchase it, right now. Leave work early and go get your copy before it gets away. Okay, maybe that’s going a little far, but I would venture to say that if there is one third-party d20 book that is absolutely essential to any campaign, it’s this one. Whether you are a DM or a player, if your group does any wilderness adventuring at all, you’ll do well to have a copy of Wilds. There’s truly something in here for everyone.The Open Game Content is a little ambiguous for my tastes. I like my OGC statement to be clear-cut and easy to interpret without having to contract a lawyer. That isn’t quite the case here. From what I can gather, though, all game mechanics are considered OGC, but some spell names, magic items, and artifacts contain Product Identity, so be careful how you use it.To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=586&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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