Post by Gilvan Blight on May 17, 2010 14:58:34 GMT -5
Quickly: interesting, basically an addition to the Monster Manual.
Summary:
This is a hardcover Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition sourcebook containing 223 page about Undead. This is mainly a DM book and I would actually suggest player's not read it in the way I suggest they not read the Monster Manual: it takes away some of the fun and discovery.
The book is divided into 4 chapters.
Chapter 1 deals with undead lore. This strongly reminded me of the Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons book (which I just realized I failed to review here). There are details about Physiology, Outlook and Psychology and Society with a section in the back looking at The Shadowfell.
Chapter 2 is called the DM's Guide to Undead and contains some great out of the ordinary encounter ideas. By out of the ordinary I mean social encounters, skill challenges and even idea on using Undead as Patrons. Three different Campaign arcs are given as well. Quite a few artifacts, some new rituals and a great section of undead Grafts round out this chapter.
Chapter 3 presents a series of lairs. These are fully detailed encounter locations including 2-3 set combat encounters and many suggestions for more. There are 3 lairs included for each Tier of play.
Chapter 4 contains almost 100 pages of new monsters. Most of these are typical Monster Manual style monsters and include some great new mobs like: "The Brain in the Jar" and "Crawling Gauntlet". Many old mobs are given new types (your typical undead, zombies, ghouls, skeletons etc). There are 7 famous undead stated out near the end of the book. These include famous characters like Vecna and Strad. Quite a few new templates are included. The final section of the book contains some great alternate powers for the typical undead types.
The Good:
The first section on Physiology and Psychology was actually rather fascinating. I loved the ideas of skill challenges and the sections on hauntings were rather good as well. I've already had an Undead patron in one of my games but that section gave me some great new ideas. Many of the new monsters are great. I so love the Brain in the Jar, the Tombstone Golem and the Flesh Cult (would make great Mid Paragon level baddies).
The Bad
I'm not a huge fan of the artifact system in 4e and I was even less of a fan of the artifacts in this book. Most of them seemed to be designed more for an evil character then good. I can't see most parties wanting to keep the items. A few were good, like Kaz's sword needed to Kill Vecna but many just didn't seem useful. I actually would have preferred more theory in this book. I really loved the Draconomicon: Chromatic dragon book for all of the background, fluff and theory. To me that book was more about background and info then about stats. This book seems to be the opposite. It's more about the crunch and less about the fluff. It's more of a Monster Manual then anything, and it can as boring to read as a MM at times.
The Ugly
I personally thought way too much time and space was given to the monster lairs. Sure they are neat and all but I highly doubt I will use more then one in my games. 78 pages of the book are given over to these lairs I will probably never use. Reading through them was uninspired as well as most of it was just a series of 'read aloud text' with a couple of combat encounters at the end.
Overall:
I wasn't as impressed with this one as I thought I would be. I really liked the Chromatic Dragons book and expected this to be as fun to read and it just wasn't. This one is a lot more mechanical with a lot more crunch. Now if all you are looking for is some new mobs, some places to fight those mobs (lairs) and some artifacts for them to have, you will be very happy with this book. Even saying that it's still a good book, there's some great stuff in here that will definitely enhance my game, it just wasn't as interesting or fun a read as I thought it would be.
Summary:
This is a hardcover Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition sourcebook containing 223 page about Undead. This is mainly a DM book and I would actually suggest player's not read it in the way I suggest they not read the Monster Manual: it takes away some of the fun and discovery.
The book is divided into 4 chapters.
Chapter 1 deals with undead lore. This strongly reminded me of the Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons book (which I just realized I failed to review here). There are details about Physiology, Outlook and Psychology and Society with a section in the back looking at The Shadowfell.
Chapter 2 is called the DM's Guide to Undead and contains some great out of the ordinary encounter ideas. By out of the ordinary I mean social encounters, skill challenges and even idea on using Undead as Patrons. Three different Campaign arcs are given as well. Quite a few artifacts, some new rituals and a great section of undead Grafts round out this chapter.
Chapter 3 presents a series of lairs. These are fully detailed encounter locations including 2-3 set combat encounters and many suggestions for more. There are 3 lairs included for each Tier of play.
Chapter 4 contains almost 100 pages of new monsters. Most of these are typical Monster Manual style monsters and include some great new mobs like: "The Brain in the Jar" and "Crawling Gauntlet". Many old mobs are given new types (your typical undead, zombies, ghouls, skeletons etc). There are 7 famous undead stated out near the end of the book. These include famous characters like Vecna and Strad. Quite a few new templates are included. The final section of the book contains some great alternate powers for the typical undead types.
The Good:
The first section on Physiology and Psychology was actually rather fascinating. I loved the ideas of skill challenges and the sections on hauntings were rather good as well. I've already had an Undead patron in one of my games but that section gave me some great new ideas. Many of the new monsters are great. I so love the Brain in the Jar, the Tombstone Golem and the Flesh Cult (would make great Mid Paragon level baddies).
The Bad
I'm not a huge fan of the artifact system in 4e and I was even less of a fan of the artifacts in this book. Most of them seemed to be designed more for an evil character then good. I can't see most parties wanting to keep the items. A few were good, like Kaz's sword needed to Kill Vecna but many just didn't seem useful. I actually would have preferred more theory in this book. I really loved the Draconomicon: Chromatic dragon book for all of the background, fluff and theory. To me that book was more about background and info then about stats. This book seems to be the opposite. It's more about the crunch and less about the fluff. It's more of a Monster Manual then anything, and it can as boring to read as a MM at times.
The Ugly
I personally thought way too much time and space was given to the monster lairs. Sure they are neat and all but I highly doubt I will use more then one in my games. 78 pages of the book are given over to these lairs I will probably never use. Reading through them was uninspired as well as most of it was just a series of 'read aloud text' with a couple of combat encounters at the end.
Overall:
I wasn't as impressed with this one as I thought I would be. I really liked the Chromatic Dragons book and expected this to be as fun to read and it just wasn't. This one is a lot more mechanical with a lot more crunch. Now if all you are looking for is some new mobs, some places to fight those mobs (lairs) and some artifacts for them to have, you will be very happy with this book. Even saying that it's still a good book, there's some great stuff in here that will definitely enhance my game, it just wasn't as interesting or fun a read as I thought it would be.