WotC Summer 05 Product Lists

[Knight Otu]

Maybe I have a different Book of Vile Darkness, but my copy only has a few pages devoted to playing in an evil campaign, and otherwise it was meant as a book the DM should "Hide from his players." Of course, you can use it as a resource for playing evil characters, but it wasn't necessarily meant to be...

 

[Li Shenron]

Weird, I though "playing an evil campaign" was one of the most important chapters of BoVD...

 

[d20Dwarf]

Heh! I didn't notice you were actually one of the authors of the book, I'm embarassed

My doubts about the usefulness of this title are because of the description:



I thought that the Book of Vile Darkness already had "everything you need to know to play evil characters", and discussions on the nature of evil, different evils etc... since it's a general book, I wonder what else about this can CoR have? How is an evil character it different in FR compared to all the other settings? I can only think of the FR-specific evil organizations, but those were already well treated in Lords of Darkness.

From the description above the only "new" stuff seems to be the usual feats/spells/etc (well ok the planar touchstones are very new), of which I wonder how much is entirely new and how much is just revised.

I'm not sure why that embarrasses you.

If I had been writing the blurb, I would probably have focused more on the FR specific stuff rather than on the generic stuff about playing evil. This is definitely a Realms book. There are plenty of things that evil has to deal with in the Realms that it doesn't have to in other campaigns...ever had Elminster on your tail?

The evil organizations were covered in Lords of Darkness, but from a DM's perspective. This book covers them from the players' angle. Want a party of Red Wizard PCs? Have a Zhentarim spy planted in a party? This book will help you with that. There are lots of new organizations too, though, that will inspire new campaign ideas (and I hope will help people play in regions they might never have before).

In my opinion it's a bold idea for WotC to pursue, so I'd at least give it a shot before you decide the BoVD is everything you need. (Champions of Ruin isn't a "mature line" product, either.)

 

[DaveMage]

(Champions of Ruin isn't a "mature line" product, either.)

So it's for immature people?

Cool!

 

[Knight Otu]

I wonder if there will actually be any more Mature Line books. There really wasn't any for 2004 (though the Libris Mortis might have come close), and so far, there's no indication for a 2005 Mature Line product.

 

[d20Dwarf]

So it's for immature people?

Cool!

Far be it from me to bite the hand that feeds me.

 

[Nightfall]

I can't go into specifics about what's in the book. I suppose I can tell you that I didn't write anything for demon princes, though.

Well maybe someone else did...

Are you doing more Wizards stuff? What about FFG? (I'd asked for Scarred Lands...but that's being cancelled so )

Any chance you can tell us your favorite part on work on this book? (Not necessarily details OF the book just the process.)

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Weird, I though "playing an evil campaign" was one of the most important chapters of BoVD...

Hardly. It's actually only a 3-page appendix; out of 192 pages, that's not much.

Obviously, the majority of the material is useful to PCs as much as to NPCs, with a few exceptions, though admittedly less exceptional with fiendish monster classes for PCs all over the place and undead monster classes in Libris Mortis, too, since being an evil outsider or undead is generally a prerequisite for some of the NPC-exclusive material.

 

[Knightfall]

My D&D wish list for 2005:

City of Splendors: Waterdeep: I love Waterdeep and I'll likely buy this just to read and mine it for ideas. I've always wanted to port Waterdeep into World of Kulan, however. Hmm...

Codex Anathema: The Book of Aberrations: I'm defintely hooked on this line of products. Draconomicon is one of my favorite 3.5e books. I was going to pass on Libris Mortis, until I browsed through it at my FLGS.

Complete Adventurer: Haven't got Complete Arcane yet but I will soon and then this one might follow, unless I go for Malhavoc's Book of Roguish Luck. I already have MEGs rogue book, so Complete Adventurer will need to be more diverse, or I'll pass.

Dungeon Master's Guild II: I'll have to browse through this one, and be impressed, before I'll even consider it.

Sandstorm and Maelstrom: Even more then Codex Anathema, I'm looking forward to the continuation of the Environment Series. This is one of WotCs best ideas for a book line so far. (Frostburn rocks, BTW!)

Cheers!

KF72

 

[d20Dwarf]

Well maybe someone else did...

Are you doing more Wizards stuff? What about FFG? (I'd asked for Scarred Lands...but that's being cancelled so )

Any chance you can tell us your favorite part on work on this book? (Not necessarily details OF the book just the process.)

Yes, yes, no.