Masters of the Wild Book Review

             Greetings! Just recently, I happened to finally purchase the D&D accessory book, “Masters of the Wild: A Guidebook to Barbarians, Druids, and Rangers” and figured this would be a good week to review it since I haven’t reviewed a D&D book in awhile.  There are five main sections of the book that I find to be the most informative and useful for most players.

            The first thing that I really like about this book is in the very first chapter it goes out of its way to describe the perspective of these three, wilderness loving, classes.  Often times I’ll find that players will not fully understand the mentality of a character that spends most of his/her time in nature (which is not surprising since most people who play D&D are not going on frequent and extended treks through the forest).  This section of the book really makes a player better understand exactly what their character’s motivations and leanings are.

            The second chapter focuses mainly on Feats and let me tell you there are some pretty crazy ones in there.  Can you imagine a Barbarian that can rage twice as long, twice as many times per day, and deal greater damage while in raged?  Well the feats in Masters of Wilderness will give you all this and much more.  Druids benefit in similar ways in that their wild forms become buffed like no tomorrow.  In my book, a Druid in wild form as a wolf should not normally be able to cast lightning from its mouth and simultaneous shoot a bow and arrow, but with the right set of feats, this is indeed possible. Rangers don’t get quite as many “cheap” feats, but there was one in particular that struck me as pretty ridiculous; a critical threat range of 15 to 20 on a favored enemy of your choice.  Talk about overkill.

            The third chapter of the book focused on weapons and tools and such.  The standard weapons of the guide primarily focus on not killing a foe, but instead “subduing” them.  I thought this was an interesting mechanic, but in all honesty, I didn’t feel like it was overly useful.  In my experience, there are only so many situations where you have to subdue an enemy rather than just kill the thing.  The magic items on the other hand I found to be pretty good, although a bit generic.  Bonuses on wild form, tracking, wilderness stuff, etc.  One item that caught my eye though was the “Standing Stone” which is basically a piece of Stonehenge that when a druid touches it is able to cast the spell it is imbued with, but at a much higher potency.  While these obelisks are not movable, I fell like these are great plot device pieces for any Druid.

            The fifth chapter focuses on Prestige Classes, of which there are quite a few.  However, I will say that almost 60% to 70% of all of them look horribly mutated.  Don’t get me wrong, they are most certainly powerful and/or useful, but let’s just say you wouldn’t want to walk into any towns looking like them….ever.  For instance, if you decide to become an Oozemaster you will have the ability to seep through cracks, cast a plethora of damaging and debilitating spells, and all of their standard attacks have “Oozy touch”, which heightens the potency of any attack from an Oozmaster.  However, you also will appear to be made out of mold, you lose your ability to communicate, and you spend most of your time in a puddle.  Potent, but terribly strange.

Speaking of horribly mutated, here is an Undead Bear-for- Shark, courtesy of SPipes

            Finally, there is the new spells, which while there are not many, I like how most of them are quite useful even for level 0.  For instance, one of the spells is an enhancement on your entangle spell, which not only entangles the enemy, but also deals damage over time to all those entangled.  So, nothing game breaking in the spells department, but most definitely a good addition to your selection of divine nature spells.

            Overall, this book is well worth the purchase considering that it gives new depth and flavor to classes that lack in elaboration for the most part.  The new feats and items introduced make Barbarians and Druids much more useful and don’t make rangers any more over powered than they already are.  So, I give Masters of the Wild a  4 out of 5 stars.

Until next week!

Raz

Stronghold Building and the Threat of Death

            Greetings!  Today I would like to make a brief comment on the magic Artifact, the Deck of Many Things (a deck of cards that when you draw a card can either yield huge rewards or the death of your character).  This magic item has been in my last two campaigns and while it is a very exciting endeavor to draw from it to see if you die or not, it can be a real game killer if the wrong cards are drawn.  On the one hand you can earn a super cool Keep of your own with all the furnishings, but on the other you can end up in a perpetual coma.    [this post is property of Do A Spot Check]

            But on another note, I felt like today would be a good day for another book review, (considering that I just bought it last week) being the D&D Accessory book Stronghold Builder’s Guide.   This book is essential a how-to guide for building structures of any sort in D&D whether that is a simple tavern or a “floating castle at the center of a hurricane” (4).  The book does a good job of clearly demonstrating the process without making it too difficult by breaking the process down into easily defined “stronghold spaces” (ss).  In addition, the guide focuses on keeping micro-management to a minimum while letting the reader be as imaginative as possible in the creation of their stronghold. [This post is property of Do A Spot Check]

            However, all of this does come with an extremely high price.  At its absolute minimum cost, one simple stronghold space costs roughly 500gp, but most ss cost several thousand gp.  A complete small fortress could easily cost 50,000 gp (more money than typically found in a D&D campaign).   Then to further add to the cost is magic furnishings for your stronghold.  These magic components are basically fortress specific magic items that, like regular magic items, cost a fortune on their own.  Long story short, the process is freaking expensive.

            Overall the Stronghold Builder’s Guide is a worthwhile buy because it is a wellspring of good ideas and plot-device invoking items.  It opens the door to a new mode of playing D&D where your goal isn’t killing things or solving puzzles, but instead about building a fortress, town, or city of your own.  With this said though, the book is more oriented to DMs rather than players simply because normal players, under normal circumstances, will never raise enough money to build such wondrous places.  Because of this I give the book 4 out of 5 Stars. [This post is property of Do A Spot Check]

And now on a personal note from our latest D&D session, I am very excited to announce that I tumbled through a tornado.

Until next week,

Raz

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Quote of the Week

DM:     You see a Giant Ant in the distance.

Druid:  Alright I wanna shoot it with my bow.

DM:     Wait… What??? Why would you shoot it with your bow?

Druid:  Alright fine! Then I’ll hit it with my scimitar…

DM:     *face palm*

Player Tip of the Week

Make your own decisions.  In a party of diverse alignments and classes, everyone is going to have a different approach to a situation, regardless of how mundane.  When presented with a locked door in a dungeon, a Chaotic Neutral Barbarian might want to just kick the door in, while the Neutral Evil Rogue might want to check it for traps first, and the True Neutral Druid might want to ignore the door completely.  However, as an individual, you must make YOUR decision.  This is not to say completely ignore advice, but in the end it is your call whether to open the door or not. [This post is property of Do A Spot Check]

            For instance, one time in our current campaign, we stumbled upon a magic blue feathered chicken.  Upon inspection we found that the feathers, when used on arrows, made them Seeking arrows.  After I caught the chicken, it was up to our Ranger how many feathers to pull at one time.  Me being the very chaotic character that I am, suggested pulling out the feathers in fistfuls, while our other characters clamored for a more conservative approach.

I would like to point out that my approach was the wrong way to handle this and she, as a Ranger, should have known this.  However, because of her inability to make a decision on the subject, she chose to violently yank two fistfuls of feathers out, killing the chicken and making it (with all the feathers) disappear.  I was disappointed because I had wanted to find out what blue chicken meat tasted like.  For whatever reason, the Ranger was horrified by my disappointment. 

DM Tip of the Week

Have a backup plan.  As a DM, you have to account for the fact that you may have given characters a challenge that is too difficult for them to complete or the gods of dice rolling just weren’t on the players’ side that day.  In these situations, you need to have a backup plan of some sort whether that is a NPC who is more powerful than you who travels with your party as a guide, or some conveniently placed lightning bolts to strike an enemy down you were about to die from. 

For instance, we were traveling from one town to another when we were hit by a normal random encounter with four young Dire Weasels.  Shouldn’t be too bad right? Wrong.  On this particular day the gods of dice rolling were apparently not in our favor in that I critically missed about five times throughout the battle and was critically hit three times, almost in succession.  Seeing this ridiculousness, our NPC guide/Wizard Zed froze time for us for 4 rounds so that we could finish off the weasels (I still critically misses twice more). [This post is property of Do A Spot Check]

Players should always fear death, but they shouldn’t fear death from mundane enemies like Dire Weasel pups…

Quick! Do A Spot Check!

Greetings to you my reader, and welcome to Do a Spot Check!  On this blog you can expect weekly updates on all kinds of Dungeons and Dragons awesomeness including: book reviews, DM and Player tips, interesting D&D related stories, character and equipment ideas, and much, much more! 

            My purpose in this is to show that D&D is not some game for the select few but can be appreciated and enjoyed by anyone.  In addition to this though, I want to provide a service to both rookies and veterans alike that does not only involve calculators and generators but actually assists you in the “how to play” aspects of the game.  I have tried on many occasions to find straight forward advice on how to play a certain character or how to best formulate a campaign, but have been unsuccessful.  Hopefully this will help fill that void and we can all have a good time doing it.  Enjoy! [This post is property of Do A Spot Check]

Raz

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Book Review

For my first book review I have decided to review the D&D Accessory book Song and Silence: A Guide to Bards and Rogues mostly because Rogues are my favorite class.  This book, like many other class guides, acts as supplementary information that can or cannot be used according to the DM of a particular game and includes such information as Prestige Classes, New Skills/Feats, equipment, and other helpful tidbits of information.

Where this book succeeds is in the fact that it is immediately useful.  You can pick it up and, quite literally, find something useful on any page you flip to.  My only complaint is in the trap making section because the process is so bloody complicated, but that isn’t the books fault necessarily because trap making is freaking difficult anyway. 

While it does tend to focus more on Rogues than Bards, the information provided for each class is equally helpful if not evenly allocated.  Overall, I give it 4 out of 5 stars. [This post is property of Do A Spot Check]

Player Tip of the Week

Know Your Character.  In a campaign there are a plethora of enemies and puzzles that will arise and there is no better way to handle each situation than to know what your character can and can’t do.  Basically, the more you know about your character, the better you will be able to react to different situations. 

For example, if you are a Druid on a side quest picking herbs and you are approached by a Giant Ant, you should know that Druids can talk to animals with a low level spell, and that you may be able to talk your way out of the conflict.  Let’s then say conflict is unavoidable, and you, being the level 5 Druid that you are, have the quite powerful spell Call Lightning, you should know that this spell (which deals 3d6 damage per turn) is a much better option than whacking it with your club (1d6). [This post is property of Do A Spot Check]

DM Tip of the Week

Don’t dictate exactly what has to happen in a campaign.  Even though you may have an idea of how you want a particular situation or puzzle to be solved, sometimes the players themselves can divine a better solution than you had initially thought. [This post is property of Do A Spot Check]

For instance, if presented with a small fortress that has a 15 foot wooden wall surrounding it and a watchtower nearby, a DM’s solution to this problem might be as simple as shooting the guard out of the tower with the party’s heavy crossbow and then climbing up the wall using a ladder.

However, you’re players may decide that it would be better to scale this thing “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” style and have the party’s rogue hang on to the top of the ladder, while everyone else carried the ladder at the bottom so that when they reached the wall he could leap off the ladder, onto the tower, and kick the guard off before he had a chance to draw his sword.  This actually happened in a campaign and it actually worked.  The rogue changed his name to Peter Parker afterward.