Post by Gilvan Blight on Nov 28, 2010 20:51:11 GMT -5
Quickly: cool mix of monsters, NPCs, traps and hazards.
Summary:
This hardcover supplement supports the recently updated Dark Sun setting Campaign Guide for 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. This is pretty much a monster manual with some added information. Previous 4e Campaign settings released a player and DM book, Dark Sun instead has a Player book and this Book. Due to this some of the setting and NPC information for the DM is here.
The book is 143 page and contains 4 sections. Creatures of Athas is the majority of the book and contains just under 100 pages of new monsters. Personages of Athas follows this with 21 pages of NPCs that include the Sorcerer Kings and their guards as well as key NPCs from various noble families. Encounter options includes a bunch of cool new crunch with a distinct Dark Sun feel. The book Finishes with a Monster By Level chart that is very useful for creating encounters.
The Creatures of Athas section uses the new Monster Stat Block released in Monster Manual III. In addition to this change we also see an increase in the amount of lore and background given for each monster. This added info seems to have replaced the 'typical encounters' given in previous monster books. The creatures in this section are of all level ranges and represent most of the classic Dark Sun monsters from the old AD&D 2nd edition rules. My memory of the old setting isn't perfect, but I'm pretty sure there are some interesting new monsters here as well.
The Personages of Athas section is odd. It's a mix of stat blocks just like the Creatures section but also tosses in background information that you would expect to find in the Campaign guide. I was very surprised to see stats for most (perhaps all) of the Sorcerer Kings.
The Encounter Options section of the book is my favourite. There is some great stuff here. The first section is on Customizing Monsters and gives some great ideas on how to use 4th edition monsters from any other setting in Dark Sun. This combined with the Monster Themes from the next section should give you more then enough monsters for any campaign. This next section presents four themes that can be applied to any monster to give them an Athasian feel. This section can easily be expanded to non-Dark Sun games and would be perfect for paragon level adventures in the Elemental Chaos. This section finishes with a bunch of Terrain and Hazards. Most notable is rules for Defiled Terrain, another section that seemed to be missing from the Campaign Guide.
The Good:
Great looking book! I absolutely love the cover. The interior art is almost as good. A great mix of creatures with all of the classics. I was glad to see the Gaj and other iconic Dark Sun creatures updated for this new 4th edition. I was also gad to see a good mix of creatures in different roles. It's nice to have 4 different Gith to choose from to make encounters more interesting. While the monsters were great, the part of this book that really shined to me was the section on changing non-Dark Sun creatures to fit in. Both the suggestions on how to change existing monsters and the four new themes that you can tack onto anything 4e were brilliant. Even more impressive were all the thoughts running through my head as I read this on how I could use this stuff in other 4e Settings. That was an added bonus.
The Bad:
There is still not enough information on Defiling for my tastes. Reading the Campaign guide I was very disappointed with how defiling was handled. I was really hoping that by the time I finished this book I would have found the hidden nasty defiling rules that make it the 'dark side temptation' that it was in 2nd edition. I did find some great rules for defiled terrain, and a tree that you could suck the life force from but that's it. While I like these rules I still think more is needed to make Defiling a tempting option for players.
The Ugly:
My only real complaint with this book is the fact that it's a must buy for a Dark Sun DM. This is due to the fact that there are sections in here that I think would have had a better home in the Campaign Guide or a separate DM based campaign book. Now this really isn't a problem though as any Dark Sun DM is probably going to pick this book up for the monster's anyway so will still get the info.
Overall:
I was really happy with this book. There's a great set of creatures in here along with some added surprises like new Themes and NPCs including the Sorcerer Kings themselves. I still think that a DM book would have been nice, but I guess I would have bought this one anyway so including some setting and hazard information in with the monsters isn't really a bad thing. What surprised me the most though was how much of this information you could toss into a Non-Dark Sun game. I'm thinking some of these monsters may just show up in Gamma Terra sometime soon
Summary:
This hardcover supplement supports the recently updated Dark Sun setting Campaign Guide for 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. This is pretty much a monster manual with some added information. Previous 4e Campaign settings released a player and DM book, Dark Sun instead has a Player book and this Book. Due to this some of the setting and NPC information for the DM is here.
The book is 143 page and contains 4 sections. Creatures of Athas is the majority of the book and contains just under 100 pages of new monsters. Personages of Athas follows this with 21 pages of NPCs that include the Sorcerer Kings and their guards as well as key NPCs from various noble families. Encounter options includes a bunch of cool new crunch with a distinct Dark Sun feel. The book Finishes with a Monster By Level chart that is very useful for creating encounters.
The Creatures of Athas section uses the new Monster Stat Block released in Monster Manual III. In addition to this change we also see an increase in the amount of lore and background given for each monster. This added info seems to have replaced the 'typical encounters' given in previous monster books. The creatures in this section are of all level ranges and represent most of the classic Dark Sun monsters from the old AD&D 2nd edition rules. My memory of the old setting isn't perfect, but I'm pretty sure there are some interesting new monsters here as well.
The Personages of Athas section is odd. It's a mix of stat blocks just like the Creatures section but also tosses in background information that you would expect to find in the Campaign guide. I was very surprised to see stats for most (perhaps all) of the Sorcerer Kings.
The Encounter Options section of the book is my favourite. There is some great stuff here. The first section is on Customizing Monsters and gives some great ideas on how to use 4th edition monsters from any other setting in Dark Sun. This combined with the Monster Themes from the next section should give you more then enough monsters for any campaign. This next section presents four themes that can be applied to any monster to give them an Athasian feel. This section can easily be expanded to non-Dark Sun games and would be perfect for paragon level adventures in the Elemental Chaos. This section finishes with a bunch of Terrain and Hazards. Most notable is rules for Defiled Terrain, another section that seemed to be missing from the Campaign Guide.
The Good:
Great looking book! I absolutely love the cover. The interior art is almost as good. A great mix of creatures with all of the classics. I was glad to see the Gaj and other iconic Dark Sun creatures updated for this new 4th edition. I was also gad to see a good mix of creatures in different roles. It's nice to have 4 different Gith to choose from to make encounters more interesting. While the monsters were great, the part of this book that really shined to me was the section on changing non-Dark Sun creatures to fit in. Both the suggestions on how to change existing monsters and the four new themes that you can tack onto anything 4e were brilliant. Even more impressive were all the thoughts running through my head as I read this on how I could use this stuff in other 4e Settings. That was an added bonus.
The Bad:
There is still not enough information on Defiling for my tastes. Reading the Campaign guide I was very disappointed with how defiling was handled. I was really hoping that by the time I finished this book I would have found the hidden nasty defiling rules that make it the 'dark side temptation' that it was in 2nd edition. I did find some great rules for defiled terrain, and a tree that you could suck the life force from but that's it. While I like these rules I still think more is needed to make Defiling a tempting option for players.
The Ugly:
My only real complaint with this book is the fact that it's a must buy for a Dark Sun DM. This is due to the fact that there are sections in here that I think would have had a better home in the Campaign Guide or a separate DM based campaign book. Now this really isn't a problem though as any Dark Sun DM is probably going to pick this book up for the monster's anyway so will still get the info.
Overall:
I was really happy with this book. There's a great set of creatures in here along with some added surprises like new Themes and NPCs including the Sorcerer Kings themselves. I still think that a DM book would have been nice, but I guess I would have bought this one anyway so including some setting and hazard information in with the monsters isn't really a bad thing. What surprised me the most though was how much of this information you could toss into a Non-Dark Sun game. I'm thinking some of these monsters may just show up in Gamma Terra sometime soon