Hmm… When I started reading this book, I couldn’t stop singing its praises. I devoted a third of a thread to it in the RPGnet forums. Sangrolu mentioned in that thread that, while he liked the advice on villain creation, he thought the rules section was plain diabolical. I’m starting to agree with him.
First off, let’s give you a run down of what’s in the book.
Chapter 1, Stereotypes and Beyond, lists a selection of famous stereotypes and suggests ways you can twist them to make them not-quite-so-mind-numbingly-cheesy.
Chapter 2 is Archetypes, and is easily my favourite section of the book. It’s full of different types of villain, what might drive them, and an example of each type. Not once does it mention a game mechanic. Hey, it even explains some plausible reasons why a villain might want to destroy the world (something I’ve never quite understood).
Chapter 3, Inside the Mind of a Killer, is a shortish chapter full of generic motivations which can be applied to any villain (bullied as a kid, addicted to power, etc).
Chapter 4 – Where Monsters Dwell – isn’t so great, being a section on villain’s lairs that had a lot of potential but fell rather flat, I reckon.
Chapter 5, The Head of the Serpent is very brief, giving sample feat trees for different types of NPC. Again, not so great.
Chapter 6, New Villainous rules, tends to be pretty bad. The Enhanced familiar feats don’t follow any sort of trend in the D&D game mechanics, and the other feats are none-too-special. The Anti-feats is a love or hate thing, I guess. Except for me, who can’t quite make my mind up. They’re rolled randomly to stop fighters taking the anti-feat of Spell Focus, for example, although it can still happen if that’s what’s rolled. You can have a maximum of 2 per level, and every two you have gives you another feat. It does suggest limiting them to NPCs only, however.
Chapter 7 is Prestige Classes, which tend to be very Kingdoms of Kalamar specific (which is great if you’re a Kingdoms of Kalamar player, but not so great if you bought it because of the writing on the back which says that most of it can be used in any D&D campaign [which is strictly true]). It also has a psionic prestige class that’s of no use to anyone not psionically endowed.
Chapter 8 is a selection of new spells, hence the chapter title – New Spells. They’re generally fairly uninspiring, and a 2nd level spell lasting for 1 round/level that completely prevents an opponent from attacking, casting spells, or moving at full rate by showering them in bat guano is just wrong.
Chapter 9 is Wicked Things, the magical item section. I’ll confess I haven’t read this yet, but the two that I have read have both been cursed. A quick flick further through reveals this to be an ongoing trend, so quite why you’d want to equip your villain with them is beyond me.
Chapter 10 starts redeeming itself. Dangerous Denizens is the book’s monsters chapter. A couple of the undead templates are Kalamar-specific, however, although they still provide an alternative to what’s in the Monster Manual.
The Appendices include a list of the characters mentioned earlier in chapter 2, a glossary of Kingdoms of Kalamar terms, and a very short adventure.
The art tends to be above average to good, and I can’t remember seeing a piece that I actively disliked. The layout’s pretty good, although the text is scarily small.
In summary – it’s by no means the most expensive RPG supplement I’ve bought, and I’d say it’s just about value for money. If you’re looking to buy something else as well, however, I’d do that first and buy this one if you’ve got money left over.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)