Masters of the Wild
Masters of the Wild is the latest - and last - of a line of "classbooks" for the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition game. Masters of the Wild provides advice and options for barbarians, rangers, and druids, the more nature oriented D&D core classes.
The "classbooks" have been greeted by mixed reviews, and it has been obvious that while they are hot sellers, they have failed to meet the expectations of some. With this in mind, we take a peek inside.
A First Look
Masters of the Wild follows the same formula of the preceding classbooks: a 96-page, perfect-bound, softcover book priced at $19.95 US. This is slightly above average for d20 System products with similar page counts or prices.
The cover has the same brown tome look of the other classbooks, emulating the D&D 3e Player's Handbook. The front cover has a picture by Jeff Easley depicting the three iconic D&D characters of the classes covered by the book.
The interior is black and white. The masterful artist of D&D 3e books, Wayne Reynolds, is listed in the credits, but alas he only has a few pieces. The majority of the art is done by Dennis Cramer, for whose art I personally do not care. A third artist, David Day, provides a few decorative nature and animal pictures in the book.
As with most Wizards of the Coast supplements, the text density is very high and is arranged in an attractive and readable manner. This serves to help counter the somewhat high price point and delivers a decent value.
A Deeper Look
The book is organized into 6 topical chapters: Nature's Lore, Skills and Feats, Tools of the Trade, Animals, Prestige Classes, and Spells.
Chapter 1: Nature's Lore
The Nature's Lore chapter is primarily concerned with providing insight on and analysis of the barbarian, ranger, and druid classes. Each section contains a brief summation of the role the members of the classes are likely to play in the game, how they relate to members of other classes, advice on using the classes special abilities, and rules updates and variants. Generally speaking, I didn't find the advice for playing these classes as useful as that provided in Tome & Blood for mage-type characters.
The druid has rules modifications to the wild shape ability, much akin to the alterations that polymorph self has undergone under official errata.
The ranger offers some variant rules. The first is the idea of an "urban ranger" variant, achieved by making the necessary alterations to the ranger's class skills and class abilities. I was not too thrilled with this idea, feeling that the rogue already fills this role rather nicely.
Perhaps the best part of this section is the new ranger favored enemy variant rules. If you don't like the "only evil rangers can take their own race as an enemy," there is another option. If there is a deep division in the race (like surface elf versus drow), you may take that subrace as a favored enemy. This can also apply to (say) human nations with ancient enmity.
Are you disgruntled by the idea that your favored enemy bonus isn't so great against undead and constructs? With any favored enemy race (not just those two) you can decide to take a defensive favored enemy bonus instead of an offensive one. This causes the modifier to apply to Hide, Move Silently, and dodge AC bonuses against the race instead of Sense Motive, Bluff, and attack and damage rolls. The other skill bonuses apply normally.
The third variant (less useful than the above two, but still interesting) is that you can select any outsider subtype or "no subtype" as options for outsiders as favored enemy. Thus you can take law, evil, air, earth, or whatever.
Chapter 2: Skills and Feats
There are no new skills; Wizards of the Coast knows that doing so is trouble. New takes are presented on Handle Animal, Hide, and Wilderness Lore, with the bulk of the material being devoted to Handle Animal, which provides new tricks that a character can teach an animal companion. Now your animal companion can do things like assist your attack, wear armor, or help you with tracking a target.
A variety of new feats is provided. There are some repeats from other books such as Multidexterity (MM) and Shadowing (Song & Silence). There is a new sort of feat called a wild feat, which requires you have the wild shape ability because the feat is only useful to enhance wild shape (i.e., giving you the ability to cast a spell in a wild shape form), or because it gives you access to abilities that normally you cannot learn (for example: blindsight, which affords the character the ability to perceive things in darkness, requires the ability to wild shape into a dire bat as a prerequisite).
Possibly the most controversial feats will be the "Toughness" feats. There are three enhanced Toughness feats: Dwarf's Toughness, Giant's Toughness, and Dragon's Toughness. Each one requires a higher base Fortitude save to take and gives you more hit points. Dwarf's Toughness requires a 5 base Fortitude save bonus and provides 6 hp; Giant's Toughness requires a 8 base Fortitude save and provides 9 hp; Dragon's Toughness requires a 11 base Fortitude save and provides 12 hp. I've already heard some grousing about this, but the more I think of it, the more I see that this might have been a clever move. The topic of altering the Toughness feat to make it more useful to classes with larger HD has come up on several forums I have been a part of, but I have yet to see a more simple and elegant method of relating the hit point bonus to the nature of the class taking it.
Some other feats are interesting and or useful. Animal Defiance and Animal Control allow the character to turn and rebuke/command animals, respectively. Plant Defiance and Plant Control have a similar effect on plants. Extra Rage, Extra Favored Enemy, and Extra Wild Shape extend the different character classes' core abilities.
Chapter 3: Tools of the Trade
The third chapter provides a number of new items. At the top of the list are new weapons, many of which you might find in a primitive culture, such as blowguns and the nagaika (a lash with glass embedded in it.)
The chapter covers a variety of new magic items. Some of the new magic items are intended for animal companions, such as the collar of cleverness, which grants the animal wearing it access to new tricks. Another interesting magic item is the standing stone. Each standing stone basically enhances one druid spell when a druid who has learned the stone's secrets touches it. Of course, historical insight shows us that druids and standing stones probably had little to do with each other, but then one must consider that this is D&D: how many other historical facts have been tossed aside in favor of more popular and fanciful takes on folklore and ancient myth?
A new sort of magic item is introduced, called infusions. Infusions work by infusing some herb or other plant with the magic of a druid spell. This is somewhat like a potion or scroll. Yet some neat options are provided for foraging for components yourself. I found this to be a blast from the past, as I recall old 1e games where our GM let one of my characters forage for plants with magical effects. This is uncharacteristically detailed for 3e, but I actually like it a lot!
Chapter 4: Animals
The fourth chapter is somewhat short, devoted to the topic of animals, which are a central element in the abilities of rangers and (especially) druids. The first few pages of the chapter are devoted to the handling of animal companions, including advice on handling them in the game and methods for the players to get the best out of them.
The chapter introduces statistics for new animals. First up are some new dire animals, such as toads, hawks, snakes, horses, elks, and elephants. Then a new type of animal is introduced: the legendary animal. The legendary animal is an animal (instead of a beast or magical beast), but is actually not much larger than standard members of the given animal species. This opens up some new options for animal companions and wild shape abilities, however, though some GMs may feel that the legendary animal is a somewhat contrived solution to the limited nature of animal companions.
Chapter 5: Prestige Classes
This is the chapter almost everyone flipped to first. To generalize, I liked what I saw. Unlike many other classbooks, with this one I was able immediately to identify a number of classes that I had wanted to develop myself because I had a need for them; I was able to cross many classes of my list of prestige classes "to make," This to me is a good sign, as it tells me that the book addresses common existing needs.
One further note: in addition to the three PC classes that many of these prestige classes are obviously geared toward, many seem to fit adepts well, and one seems to be aimed specifically at adepts.
In summary, the prestige classes are:
- Animal Lord: Animal lords are characters with an affinity for a specific type of animal. This class receives feats and special abilities related to the totem animal.
- Bane of Infidels: The bane of infidels is a divine spellcaster, a leading member of a tribe with rather xenophobic tendencies. The bane of infidels gains the ability to bolster his followers as well as boost spellcasting power by sacrifice.
- Blighter: The blighter is sort of a blackguard of druids - an ex-druid who stands against everything that druids represent. It gets a bit of a kicker for not having access to druid spells, as blighters concern themselves with destroying tracts of wilderness. They have their own destructive spell list and abilities to wild shape into undead forms. Though it could be entirely coincidence, I am given to wonder if this class was inspired by the wasteland druid in AEG's Undead supplement, which had its own ability to wild shape into undead forms.
- Bloodhound: The bloodhound is more or less a ranger specialized in tracking criminals.
- Deepwood Sniper: The deepwood sniper is an expert archer. Though somewhat redundant with the Order of the Bow initiate in Sword & Fist, the deepwood sniper is somewhat more of an outdoor hunter archetype.
- Exotic Weapon Master: A character who can use nearly any exotic weapon with a degree of proficiency. For some reason requires the ability to rage as a class ability.
- Eye of Gruumsh: Orcish champion devoted to Gruumsh. Has only one eye; likes to rage; a few class abilities focused around blinding - not much to see here.
- Foe Hunter: This flexible class has a simple concept: there is one sort of creature that the character is very good at dealing with. The foe hunter can be a giant hunter, a dragon hunter, or whatever else pleases your fancy. It requires the favored enemy ability, but does not have one of its own. Rather, it gets a sneak attack like ability called rancor toward its enemy, damage reduction against its enemy, and even eventually gets death attack (like an assassin) against its enemy.
- Forsaker: Forsakers have a deep distrust of magic. They gain some impressive class abilities, including spell resistance and an inherent ability score modifier at every level, but such benefits are temporarily lost if they ever willingly use magic. They also derive a damage reduction ability from the destruction of magic items. This class is easily one of my least favorite. A character from a tribe that is skittish and paranoid about magic is one thing; a PC running around destroying magic items brings back ill memories of the AD&D 1st edition barbarian. Further, it has a significant mechanical oversight. As compensations for eschewing magic, one of the abilities they receive is a 1 inherent bonus to one of their ability scores at each level; per the basic d20 system rules, bonuses of the same type don't stack, so the forsaker can only take advantage of 6 levels worth of bonuses.
- Frenzied Berserker: This class focuses on the frenzy ability of the barbarian. The prestige class has fewer skills and lacks other barbarian class abilities such as damage reduction, but gains an enhanced frenzy ability and some frenzy related combat abilities, such as a deathless frenzy that allows the berserker to keep fighting after reaching 0 hp.
- Geomancer: A strange arcane/divine spellcaster combo. To enter this class, you must be able to cast both divine and arcane spells, though the skill requirements make druid the most likely class. Geomancers learn to cast arcane spells in armor as they do with divine spells. They get a "ley line bonus" to caster level, which is meager compensation for the fact that they are several levels behind in each class since they must have both. They also become twisted into primal forms as they advance, which grants them some unusual abilities. A very strange class.
- Hexer: The hexer is a shaman-type prestige class; its prerequisites are likely to allow only adepts to take the class, and all of its members are non-human. The hexer's primary ability is a cursing gaze attack, which it gains different variations on as it advances in level.
- King / Queen of the Wild: This class represents a character in tune with one specific sort of terrain - king of the jungle, queen of the desert, you know the type. The class does not have spellcasting abilities, but has a good combat advancement and receives class abilities and feats related to the chosen terrain type.
- Oozemaster: Another unusual class, the oozemaster has an affinity for oozes and class abilities relating to them.
- Shifter: A character who maximizes wild shape or other shapeshifting capabilities. Its shapeshifting abilities are pretty potent, but it does not receive spellcasting abilities.
- Tamer of Beasts: The tamer of beasts has a slow spellcasting advancement, but a large number of class abilities (and is thus viable for a ranger as well as a druid). The tamer of beasts has special abilities with animals.
- Tempest: This is a simple prestige class concept: a warrior type who focuses on two-weapon fighting.
- Verdant Lord: As animal lord and tamer of beasts has special abilities with animals, verdant lords have a strong connection to plant life. The class may be a bit strong, as it has both good spellcasting advancement and good BAB advancement.
- Watch Detective: This class seems like it would have fit better in Song & Silence; apparently, the authors are trying to cast rangers in the light of sheriffs and investigators, and this would be the logical next step for such a character. The watch detective, as you might guess, is trained at investigating a crime and tracking down the perpetrators.
- Windrider: The windrider is a character with a special bond to a flying mount. In addition to giving the mount enhancements as with a paladin, the windrider has class abilities targeted at aerial riding as well as its own spell progression.
It is also noteworthy that in Masters of the Wild, any organizational information is included in this chapter. In other classbooks, organizations have been handled in a separate chapter.
Chapter 6: Spells
The final chapter of the book introduces new spells, primarily for druids and rangers, though some of the spells are cross listed for other classes. The selection of spells is large, but here is a sampling:
- Animal Trick: This low-level spell allows the ranger or druid's animal companion to perform a trick that it has not been trained to do.
- Bloodhound: Allows a character the chance to reacquire her quarry if she fails a tracking check.
- Detect Favored Enemy: This spell allows the ranger to detect the presence of one of her favored enemies.
- Nature's Avatar: Bestows significant combat bonuses on an animal companion.
- Regenerate Light/Moderate/Serious/Critical Wounds: This sequence of spells grants the fast healing ability on the target for a number of rounds.
- True Reincarnate: Much as there is a true resurrection spell, true reincarnate allows the caster to restore a character to life in a new form with no loss of levels and allows the player some choice as to the new body, but there is an experience point cost associated with the spell.
Conclusion
The most noteworthy difference between this and the previous classbooks for 3e D&D is that it covers three classes. To accommodate some additional rules and advice material for an extra class, it appears that the sort of background material featured in the other classbooks has been largely excluded. This will likely make the book more valuable to the players but less valuable to the DM. I feel this is a good thing overall, as these books appear to be primarily targeted at the players, and the sort of background material that is excluded is really only useful to a subset of DMs.
Another significant advantage over some of the earlier classbooks is less reliance on Greyhawk-specific organizations and character types. This should considerably increase the book's flexibility.
Considering these factors, I think I can safely say that Masters of the Wild is the best classbook of the bunch. Tome & Blood was also a fairly strong book in the series, but I think the class selection is somewhat stronger and the spell selection is more interesting.
-Alan D. Kohler
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