The Inside Scoop on Gaming

The first thing one notices when one picks this book up is that it is a rather slim and pricey tome, at nearly $20 for only 96 pages. Maybe, one thinks, it is full of useful information packed into such a space. Yeah, right, of course, that has to be it...

Onto the contents itself then. Firstly we have an introduction, basically stating the purpose of the book, which is apparently to provide more depth and colour to the demihuman characters of the realms. It also gives two rules clarifications, firstly that multiclass PCs can only have one kit (not one per class), which was obvious to most DMs and players anyway, and secondly that multiclass wizards cannot be specialists save for gnome illusionist/thieves. This rule is, as ever, directly contradicted by various sources and supported by others. DMs will have to make their own minds up on this issue.

Next there is section "detailing" the demihuman (not humanoid) races of the Forgotten Realms. It gives the Homelands, Allowed Classes, possible Multiclass Combinations, Initial Languages, Major Deities and References for each of the twenty (!) various subraces of demihumans on the Realms, nine of whom are some kind of Elf (gah!). The most notable thing here is not the information given, but rather the lack of it. No racial ability modifiers, level limits, special abilites or whatever are detailed, so basically nothing useful, save possibly the References. Unfortunately many of those refer to either the various badly written Forgotten Realms novels, or apparently out of print supplements. If you want actual, useful information on creating demihuman characters, you'll have to go elsewhere.

It's not looking good so far, so let's move onto the next section, the kits themselves. First we have a section explaining what the various entries in the kits section mean, ie Bonus proficiencies, Non-weapon slots and so on. All the books of Kits have this section, though this fills alot more space than most. The only useful thing of note is an explanation of what weapons can and can't be used by what demihuman races due to size. The section feels slightly silly as it assumes the average Dwarf is 4ft tall (actually pretty short for a Dwarf), and bans weapons accordingly. Elves aren't banned from anything, of course. This arbitary banning of weapons based on races seems highly foolish give the fact that many elves are under 5' tall, and some Dwarves reach that height. A more sensible system would be to ban weapons based on actual character height, rather than assumed height (in the party I DM the two elves are 5' tall exactly and around 120lbs in weight, and the Dwarf is 4' 11' and 187lbs of muscle, but techically the elves can use longswords one-handed, swing two-handed swords around, and wield 14' long pikes with ease, and yet the Dwarf can't(he's tall for his race, but still...). Still, it's nice to have it written down to wave at troublesome players.

Well, aaaanyway, here we go, the kits... There are around 35, and the're pretty varied. Some are modifications of kits in the various Handbooks, so don't be suprised if they seem a little familiar. Some are annoying (to me), such as the Advisor, Imperial Fleet which assumes you are using the obselete Spelljammer setting (yuck!) or the Barbarian, Lythari, who are Lycanthropic Elves, and who, you guessed it, have the ability to control their change, and many would be very difficult to fit in a conventional "Adventuring" campaign, like the quite clever, but "who would want to be one?" Zurchins, who are halflings who impersonate human children to enhance their ability to thieve, or those restricted by certain duties or jobs, like Mariners or Smugglers. Those kits are still reasonably useful for basing initial proficiency selections and so on, on. The rest of the kits (about 1/3rd) are perfectly useable for PCs in normal campaigns, and some are actually quite cool and exotic, like the Giant Killer, Orcslayer, Runaway, Dambraii, Exile, Gray Dwarf(on whom it does give racial stats to some degree, albeit slightly dubious ones) or Explorer, Winged Elf.

Overall then, if you're starting a new Realms campaign and the players are likely to want to be demihumans, then this may be a good book to pick up for some added colour and role-playing material, but be ready to ban kits which don't fit in your campaign and and ignore silly rules. The Wizards and Rogues of the Realms and Fighters and Priests of the Realms books are rather better, IMHO. It's not great and it is overpriced, but it's sorta interesting all the same...

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Demihumans of the Realms
Author: Roger E. Moore Category: game Company/Publisher: TSR Cost: $18.95 Page count: 96 ISBN: 0-7869-1316-9 Capsule Review by Alex Watters on 01/23/99. Genre tags: Fantasy	The first thing one notices when one picks this book up is that it is a rather slim and pricey tome, at nearly $20 for only 96 pages. Maybe, one thinks, it is full of useful information packed into such a space. Yeah, right, of course, that has to be it... Onto the contents itself then. Firstly we have an introduction, basically stating the purpose of the book, which is apparently to provide more depth and colour to the demihuman characters of the realms. It also gives two rules clarifications, firstly that multiclass PCs can only have one kit (not one per class), which was obvious to most DMs and players anyway, and secondly that multiclass wizards cannot be specialists save for gnome illusionist/thieves. This rule is, as ever, directly contradicted by various sources and supported by others. DMs will have to make their own minds up on this issue. Next there is section "detailing" the demihuman (not humanoid) races of the Forgotten Realms. It gives the Homelands, Allowed Classes, possible Multiclass Combinations, Initial Languages, Major Deities and References for each of the twenty (!) various subraces of demihumans on the Realms, nine of whom are some kind of Elf (gah!). The most notable thing here is not the information given, but rather the lack of it. No racial ability modifiers, level limits, special abilites or whatever are detailed, so basically nothing useful, save possibly the References. Unfortunately many of those refer to either the various badly written Forgotten Realms novels, or apparently out of print supplements. If you want actual, useful information on creating demihuman characters, you'll have to go elsewhere. It's not looking good so far, so let's move onto the next section, the kits themselves. First we have a section explaining what the various entries in the kits section mean, ie Bonus proficiencies, Non-weapon slots and so on. All the books of Kits have this section, though this fills alot more space than most. The only useful thing of note is an explanation of what weapons can and can't be used by what demihuman races due to size. The section feels slightly silly as it assumes the average Dwarf is 4ft tall (actually pretty short for a Dwarf), and bans weapons accordingly. Elves aren't banned from anything, of course. This arbitary banning of weapons based on races seems highly foolish give the fact that many elves are under 5' tall, and some Dwarves reach that height. A more sensible system would be to ban weapons based on actual character height, rather than assumed height (in the party I DM the two elves are 5' tall exactly and around 120lbs in weight, and the Dwarf is 4' 11' and 187lbs of muscle, but techically the elves can use longswords one-handed, swing two-handed swords around, and wield 14' long pikes with ease, and yet the Dwarf can't(he's tall for his race, but still...). Still, it's nice to have it written down to wave at troublesome players. Well, aaaanyway, here we go, the kits... There are around 35, and the're pretty varied. Some are modifications of kits in the various Handbooks, so don't be suprised if they seem a little familiar. Some are annoying (to me), such as the Advisor, Imperial Fleet which assumes you are using the obselete Spelljammer setting (yuck!) or the Barbarian, Lythari, who are Lycanthropic Elves, and who, you guessed it, have the ability to control their change, and many would be very difficult to fit in a conventional "Adventuring" campaign, like the quite clever, but "who would want to be one?" Zurchins, who are halflings who impersonate human children to enhance their ability to thieve, or those restricted by certain duties or jobs, like Mariners or Smugglers. Those kits are still reasonably useful for basing initial proficiency selections and so on, on. The rest of the kits (about 1/3rd) are perfectly useable for PCs in normal campaigns, and some are actually quite cool and exotic, like the Giant Killer, Orcslayer, Runaway, Dambraii, Exile, Gray Dwarf(on whom it does give racial stats to some degree, albeit slightly dubious ones) or Explorer, Winged Elf. Overall then, if you're starting a new Realms campaign and the players are likely to want to be demihumans, then this may be a good book to pick up for some added colour and role-playing material, but be ready to ban kits which don't fit in your campaign and and ignore silly rules. The Wizards and Rogues of the Realms and Fighters and Priests of the Realms books are rather better, IMHO. It's not great and it is overpriced, but it's sorta interesting all the same... Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Demihumans of the Realms