Evil
Evil is AEG's second in a line of supplements for the d20 System, tackling the topic of villainy in a fantasy setting. The book is primarily targeted at providing options for evil characters and advice on running a campaign with evil player characters, but is also billed as a resource for GMs to create antagonists in a game.
A First Look
Evil is a 128-page softcover book priced at $19.95 US. The cover of Evil retains a measure of the "ironbound tome" appearance started by WotC and emulated by many of its d20 imitators. The front cover, however, features a pale-skinned warrior. This helps Evil shed the most tiresome aspects of this overdone theme, and it gives Evil a much snazzier appearance than its predecessor, AEG's Dungeons.
The interior is black-and-white. The text density is low, but thin margins are used. The interior art is decent, and is for the most part more atmospheric than topical.
One thing that is unusual about this product is that the obligatory Open Game License is a sticker affixed to the inside back cover, an indication that it was a last minute addition. If you heard about some hubbub after GenCon regarding certain d20 vendors who were out of compliance with the terms of WotC's licenses, this was probably one of the items of concern.
A Deeper Look
The book is divided into two sections, "Evil that Men Do" and "No Mercy For the Weak." The distinctions between these chapters is not explicitly spelled out, but the first section appears to be devoted primarily toward the creation of characters, and the second consists of material for the creation of a campaign. Within those sections, the organization seems a little more haphazard. There seems to be some logical groupings, but in other ways the grouping is strange. For example, the prestige classes are in different places and some feats are in different places. This may be an author-influenced division, but since we are not told who authored which section, the grouping is not too functional to the reader. In some ways these groupings retain some logic (e.g., demon summoners are in a section on demon summoning), but the book would have flowed more comfortably with existing d20 conventions if it had grouped together all prestige classes, all feats, all spells, and so forth.
Section 1: "The Evil that Men Do"
Amid some other exhibition regarding the nature of evil characters, the first section includes an excellent essay on the three evil alignments of D&D. The essay is well-written, logical, inspirational, and absent of common misinterpretations attributed to the alignment system by its detractors. The only problem is that if you have AEG's Dungeons, you have seen this essay before. Though I ca not fault them too harshly for including a good essay on evil in a book devoted to the topic, the repeating of material may detract from the overall value of the book if you already have the first one.
Delving into the rules material, the book includes a decent section on the topic of summoning creatures from the netherworld, or demons (the book uses the term demon to describe outsiders of all evil alignments that bargain with mortals). It introduces a new category of feat to handle dark pacts granted by demons, called infernal feats. They are very powerful compared to the standard fare of feats, but try to compensate by applying an accompanying curse. Some GMs may find this technique unsatisfactory.
A demon summoner prestige class is introduced to play a central role in the new demon summoning rules. The demon summoner class itself looks well enough put together, but some of the accompanying mechanics are questionable. Of minor consequence, the class uses a new battery of spells to describe the process of demon summoning, but fails to build on the details that the d20 rules have already provided for magical circles and summoning, which would not be much of a point if the rules provided in Evil were not similar in many ways. Of more consequence, the book grants 0-level apprentices as followers of the demon summoners, but does not really explain how these apprentices are supposed to operate according to the rules. The only rules that describe "0-level characters" are designed for multiclass characters, and there is no way to apply them to single-class characters.
The skills section makes some good choices and some bad ones. The d20 skill system is intended to cover tasks with a very general battery of skills. Many d20 publishers make the mistake of introducing new specific skills that are an ill fit to the existing batch of general skills because such new skills are overly specific, overlap the general skills, or both. Evil is no exception. As an example, the book introduces a bullying skill that pretends to be a counterpart to intimidation that uses the Strength score. The existing 3e rules already allow the GM to use intimidation in this manner through the variant rules.
On the bright side, one author (I am almost certain Mike Mearls is responsible) does what I consider to be the "right thing." Instead of introducing new, redundant skills, he introduces a section detailing new uses for existing skills. For example, the rules show how bluff can be used to fake a fatal blow, craft can be used to turn out intentionally shoddy goods, and gather information can be used to make contacts.
The feats provided are generally decent and are made to reflect classical villain abilities. For example, the humorous but true-to-form bootlicking feat gives you a bonus to diplomacy and bluff rolls when bargaining from a position of inferiority. The tyrant feat is a version of the leadership feat that allows a villain to attract a horde of humanoids. The only feat I found to be out of place was the off-handed feat, which seems to go beyond the depth of the d20 System in handling details of combat.
This section also introduces new domains, deities, and spells of usable quality. The only concern here is that some new spells were listed as part of existing domains. The GM will need to consider how to handle this situation, since by the rules, each clerical domain only features one spell per level.
In addition to the demon summoner, two other prestige classes are introduced. The blood archer is interesting--a secret cabal of archers with a dark purpose and serving a dark master. They acquire the ability to turn their blood into poison with which they may envenom their arrows. They wield bows cut from the branches of devil-possessed treants. This is a very moody class with interesting abilities.
The bargainer makes use of the infernal pact rules introduced earlier, but unlike the demon summoner is not a spellcaster and relies wholly on dark gifts. For some reason, the bargainer is not put in the demon summoning section as was the demon summoner prestige class. Worse, the class is botched in that it uses non-standard base attack bonus and saving throw progression
In addition to the rules material, a large part of the first chapter is exposition. Some of this is very good, such as the already mentioned essay on the three kinds of evil. The archetypes are also good food for thought for GMs making villains or for players in an evil campaign.
Section 2: "Mercy is For the Weak"
The second section covers details and musings on the creation of an evil game. There is less rules material here and more GM advice. Some of this is rather basic and covers such things as the deep immersion versus hack-n-slash dichotomy. Better sections seem to be those more focused on the "evil campaign" theme, covering such concerns as handling the dangers of player rivalry in an evil campaign, and differences in handling evil games as opposed to a more traditional fantasy campaign.
Many practical notes are provided in outlining a campaign, some not unique to evil campaigns other than the ways in which players are likely to relate to them. For example, it outlines the conceptualization of evil organizations, and includes a few good examples to chew on--such as the blood archers whose rules representation appeared in Section 1.
This section also provides example organizations and villainous NPCs that should be perfectly usable in traditional campaigns. It includes as well some adventure seeds that are a bit more specific to evil oriented campaigns. New magic items are also included in many of the adventures, along with new monsters and items provided in their own sections.
The monsters and NPCs are generally better done than the monsters in Dungeons, but some problems persist. For example, one character has a skill modifier that cannot be had with the provided level, ability scores, and feat. One undead creature has a d8 hit die type and a hit point modifier despite its undead type and lack of a constitution score.
The last part of the second section is a somewhat interesting city setting for an evil campaign, Sura Sans. The city is built next to a fantastic "Veil of Shadows" that separates the land of men from the land of shadows. Sample motivations, NPCs, organizations, and sites are provided for the city.
Conclusions
Mechanically, Evil is an improvement over Dungeons. Though some problems remain, there are nowhere near the level of author blunders (and attendant editorial oversights in allowing them to reach print). AEG still needs to improve, however, if they are going to compete on par with the likes of Sword & Sorcery Studios.
Despite the improvement in the mechanical department, Evil seems like a step down when it comes to organization. Where Dungeons groups things categorically in a way that makes sense, many elements in Evil are very inconveniently placed, such as scattering prestige classes through a section or having magic item descriptions both mixed among adventure descriptions and in a dedicated magic items section.
Some interesting and useful material is included, however, and Evil may be worth your money if you do plan to run a campaign with evil characters.
-Alan D. Kohler
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