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Poisoncraft
Complete
Sourcebook On Poison
Review by C. Demetrius Morgan
Synopsis
This review is for the 96-page D20 sourcebook Poisoncraft: A
Complete Sourcebook on Poison for use in Any Campaign, written by
Justin D. Jacobson, published by Blue
Devil Games, and currently available as a PDF from
RPGnow
for $8.00. A demo
is available.
Note: The “printer friendly” PDF is only
91-pages.
Target Audience: The author states, “Experienced
gamers.” I would agree with that and add that Poisoncraft
is a niche product. Just like the 2nd edition Complete
Wizard’s Handbook or Complete Bard’s Handbook
were niche products. If you happen to play a Rogue, Assassin, or
Politician type character then Poisoncraft will be a must have
supplement. Just like the Wizard’s Handbook was for me,
back in the day.
Rating: Wow, how to rate this? For the average gamer this
product is probably: Poor to Average. However, for
those who would like to add a trace amount of diabolical intrigue
spiced with a bit of peppery evilness to their lovable scoundrel
characters then this is: Great bordering on Must-Have.
It’s really a matter of perspective. Keep that in mind while
reading this review.
Rumors: What does Blue Devil Games have planned for the
future? “We will continue to produce supplements for d20.
Our next .. release is tentatively titled Antimagic: Requiem for a
Spell and is .. slated for a September release.” Mr.
Jacobson also gave a hint of potential things to come. Viz. “We
have two great concepts for campaign settings … we continue to
work on them and will release when the time is right [and] we
are working on a line of M&M Superlink adventures.” But
that’s not all: “In addition to role-playing games …
a two-player bidding game, tentatively scheduled for release in early
July.”
Initial Impressions
Summary
Interview With the Author
Appraisal
Initial Impressions
I would of liked to have seen some alternative core classes and
more material covering the standard fantasy tropes about herbal
poisons and potions. Beyond that I had some real problems reading the
PDF as the font leaves something to be desired. The “printer
friendly” version, when read on screen, is as much of an
eyesore as the full color version. But worst of all I had the old
Bard Games “Compleat Spellcaster” and “Compleat
Alchemist” in addition to two of TSRs 2nd edition
offerings, the “Complete Wizard’s Handbook” and
“Complete Bard’s Handbook”. By comparison
Poisoncrafter, which at a glance looks to be more a toolkit of feats
and prestige classes, actually reads like it was consciously designed
to be as close to the old TSR “Complete Handbook” line as
possible. When I realized this my initial reaction was: Egad but
why!
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Overview: It is a face that I was mildly
disappointed with the Complete Wizard’s Handbook from TSR.
(And, no, it wasn’t about the price.) In fact that entire line
of products became something of a running joke around the gaming
tables of the LGS, at least around these parts. But I did buy it,
mostly just for the extra spells, which is as good a reason to get
Poisoncraft as any other I suppose. Yes, it can probably be plugged
into any standard D20 fantasy setting, but I see it as more of a tool
kit not a complete sourcebook. (Then can anything really be
complete enough for everyone?) Had Poisoncraft been billed as such,
or even kept with the title posted at the company website of
Poisoncraft: The Dark Arts, I would now be singing this
product’s praises in the “Positives” section below
instead of writing these words. Instead I am lamenting over all the
things the “complete” label had me expecting, but now I
am disappointed at not seeing, and it‘s like the Wizard‘s
Handbook all over again. The only differences being instead of kits
I will never use there are prestige classes.
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Usefulness: As with most D20
supplements this will largely depend on the type of campaign you are
running and how much effort you are willing to put into working with
the material. Too, the idea of an entire supplement that is designed
solely to propagate what could be seen as a negative gamer stereotype
by encouraging players to play evil murderous assassins and depraved
killer poisoners might leave some cold. Witness the following: “The
Poison domain is appropriate for most evil gods and particularly so
for gods worshipped by assassins or whose portfolio includes death,
evil, killing, malice, murder, serpents, spiders, trap making, or
vengeance.” I fear that some may ascribe that as being
illustrative of the mentality this tome was designed to feed into.
Obviously this sourcebook is not for everyone, most certainly it‘s
not something most parents would probably want their teens to read
and, sadly, there may one day be a Chick tract based on this. Not
suggested for those with a loose grip on reality.
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Summary
What you get are 22 general feats, 19 meta poison feats, 31
spells, 6 prestige classes, 20 “Creatures of the Fang”
(the Avaranc looks particularly nasty), a dozen or so items, and a
handful of adventure starters. I have to say that next to the font
issue what disappointed me most was the total lack of core classes.
Especially since this is essentially a Complete Poisoner’s
Handbook, sans an actual core class called a Poisoner.
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Setting: None. However this material has
a definite fantasy tone.
The Game: D20. Which means this should
be usable with D&D and most OGL games.
System Mechanics: None. You are going to
need the D&D core books.
Characters: Being a D20 supplement there
are no rules presented for character creation. What Poisoncraft does
offer are six prestige classes: the Darkblade, your
stereotypical evil poisoned blade using assassin; Ki Corrupted,
an rather pointless evil Monk; Master Poisoncrafter, a
prestige class that would have been far better presented as a core
class; Toxomancer, despite the silly sounding name this is an
attempt to blend wizardry with alchemy and spice it with a bit of
naughty sorcerer attitude that will probably appeal to the
vainglorious; Tribal Huntsman, another rather pointless
prestige class; and the Venomous Changeling, essentially
existing somewhere Beastmaster and Druid this is a class specializing
in venomous creatures and metamorphoses (into said creatures).
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Interview With the Author
As many are by now aware I often included quotes, usually
snippets, in my reviews. What may not be widely known is that these
come from e-mail questionnaires. Distilling the responses as quotable
is usually relatively easy. However in recent exchanges I have noted
some interesting remarks thus, rather than let them dissipate into
the aether unread, I have edited the text into an interview.
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CDM: What was the inspiration for Poisoncraft?
JDJ: One of the PCs in the game I was DMing was very
interested in creating his own poisons. Additionally, since our game
was somewhat over-powered, the "core" poisons were woefully
inadequate. In short, he felt constrained by the limited rules. I
began working on my own set of rules that permitted free-form poison
creation. It seemed logical enough that poison could receive the same
treatment as magic items. As I began working on the free-form poison
rules, I started having all kinds of ideas for feats, spells,
creatures, etc. That's how the "Complete" part was born.
CDM: Were there any particular influences that led to the
creation of the Poisoncraft supplement?
JDJ: The free-form poison creation system was inspired by
the magic item creation rules. After I began working on the book, I
noticed that Traps & Treachery by Fantasy Flight Games (a
spectacular book, by the way) actually had a very similar mechanic.
The decision to include alternate types of poison damage came from
that book. The Assassin's Handbook from Green Ronin Publishing first
introduced me to the idea of meta poison feats (though I didn't
particularly like the way they handled it mechanically). You'll also
notice an odd attribution on the credits page, thanking Monte Cook
for the inspiration behind the poison exposure rules. He wrote an
article for his website on handling poison; the exposure rules are a
more detailed, mechanic-based version of those rules.
CDM: Who would you say the target audience for Poisoncraft
is?
JDJ: Experienced gamers. There's plenty in the book for
both DM's and players. But this is fairly advanced stuff. Take the
fearsome forest spell. This is a spell that affects all "intruders"
in a 5-mile radius. It might be difficult for (1) a beginning player
to decide how and when for his character to use such a spell and (2)
for a beginning DM to adjudicate its effects. I didn't shy away from
including mechanics that required more thought and wisdom to employ.
I've always been of the opinion that game material of that type adds
a level of robustness and richness that's rewarding.
CDM: If you had to reduce Poisoncraft to a one-sentence
description what would that sentence say?
JDJ: I'll do you one better; the one-word description is
right on the cover: "Complete." That was a pretty tall
order, but I believe the book lives up to it.
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Appraisal
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To be perfectly honest, because this file was such an
eye-straining pain to read, I’ve let it slip to the end of my
review queue several times now. It was that unbearable to view
onscreen initially. Which is a shame because I think it is
interesting, but I value my eyesight more than my desire to feed my
curiosity. Even so these PDFs are probably fit to be sent to a POD
printer, so there you go. Nor is that the only upside. The PDF is not
locked so you can save it to a text file. But that’s almost as
annoying to read through as the poorly thought out choice of font
used in the PDF. Alas, once you get past the horrible font what you
have is a collection of mediocre to above average material, depending
on the sort of characters you like to play. For instance the Ki
Corrupted and Tribal Hunstman prestige classes seem totally
pointless. Only in an evil campaign would a “corrupted”
Monk be considered a prestige class. But that’s not the real
issue. This product boldly claims to be “The Complete
Sourcebook” (of poison craft), yet it presents not one but
two prestige classes that should have also had a core class. After
all for a Master Poisoncrafter to exist shouldn’t there first
be a Poisoncrafter? And for a Ki to become corrupted shouldn’t
there first exist a Ki core class, preferably presented within this
document?
Is this nitpicking? You bet it is! But when claiming something is
a “complete” sourcebook an effort to provide as few
openings to nitpickers as possible should be made. Even so as a
toolkit this product is awesome. I know you just blinked in
astonishment. No, your eyes weren’t deceiving you. Alas, and
sadly, I have to review Poisoncraft based upon the claim of it being
a “Complete Sourcebook”. In all honesty I don’t
think that Poisoncraft is as complete as it could be. For instance
never once are standard fantasy herbs with narcotic and poisonous
properties such as monkshood, wolf’s bane, or henbane
mentioned. These were major components in my campaigns of old. While
there are some interesting sidebar notes presented there is very
little advice, hints, or examples of how a Game Master might better
utilize poisons to enhance the plot or mood of a game session
provided. Poisoncraft has a rather narrow vision, namely presenting
feats and prestige classes for players who want to play borderline
evil characters, and the one really good sample tie in is conversion
notes for using material from Arcana Unearthed. This is the
epitome of niche product. Be aware of that fact when considering your
purchase.
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PDF Issues: My eyes! My eyes!
Luckily aside from the font issue there are no major problems with
the PDF discernable. Search works and you cannot only copy and paste
text to your clipboard for editing you can save the entire PDF as a
text file. Woot!
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Negatives: The font choice was horribly
ill conceived. Oh printed out it looks kewl, but that’s the
problem, on screen it’s shite. Also I’m not sure how
useful a poisoner’s handbook really would be for the average
gamer. But what really caused by eyes to bleed was the fact no really
“screen friendly” version of the file is provided. Worse
the printer friendly PDF really is just the full color PDF stripped
of all color, same fonts and everything, which means the only choices
for those who want to read this onscreen is to either pop a fist full
of aspirin or not waste their time at all. Not good.
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Constructive Criticism: Seriously I can‘t
stress this enough, a PDF is not a book, sure you can use a PDF to do
a book‘s layout, but when selling a PDF you really, really,
REALLY need to consider that the people buying it are 9 times out of
10 going to be sitting down to read said PDF on a monitor. That’s
monitor, as in desktop computer screen, probably flat, though could
still be of the flickering tube variety, and probably nothing much
larger than 17”. This is why when we reviewers sometimes refer
to a PDF as an eBook, because it’s a reminder this is NOT a
book, but rather an electronic text meant to be read on a computer
screen. That means anything under 10-point font should be used
sparingly. Furthermore it DOES NOT HELP to see a table of contents
crammed into three columns, especially since the font size chosen is
already so G-d awful small. That said I do appreciate the bookmarks
even if using them means that the on screen text is reduced in size
to a point it becomes unreadable. At this point I am saddened and
sorry to say that I have to ask Blue Devil Games: What in the name
of all that is holy were you thinking? What? Oh, you have 20/20
vision. I see. Speaking of seeing, some of us wear glasses!
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Positives: Gamers looking for a bit of
2nd edition nostalgia and players of evil characters can
rejoice! Yes, you heard me right, if you like to play evil characters
then this sourcebook is for you. Do not pass go, do not collect
thirty silver pieces, but grab this PDF instead. According to the
information on the company web site Poisoncraft is the “first
in the Complete line of d20 sourcebooks”, alas so far
Poisoncraft appears to be the only offering from Blue Devil Games.
Which is a shame given the enthusiasm that the author has for the
material. One can only hope this dynamic energy will carry over to
future offerings from Blue Devil Games.
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Don't forget the soda and munchies!
Copyright © 2004 C. Demetrius Morgan
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