Book of Vile Darkness: Demonologist

Today’s excerpt has garnered some negative criticism partially for the outfit, but largely because of the quasit’s anger issues; most of the time it gets along just fine, but if you are unable to give it orders–like you are stunned, dominated, or sleeping–then it “acts under the Dungeon Master’s control as your enemy”.

Despite this drawback it is still a pretty sweet package; adjacent enemies take a save penalty, it doubles up on ability score damage (determined by you, no less), can turn invisible whenever it wants to, can grant you a skill bonus, and can even save-ends daze a target that attacks you. Since it can communicate via telepathy, you can have it scout places while invisible and get some excellent intelligence because it has to do what you say. 

And that is just the start. You still get your action point benefit–adjacent creatures take variable energy damage and you gain resistance for the encounter against that type–and an encounter attack that lets you bind a demonic essence to a creature, which lets you slide a target, have it make an attack with combat advantage and a damage roll. If the attack hits? The attacker is then also dazed for a turn. Very nice.

At 12th-level you can levy an evil-eye type effect against an enemy as an interrupt, imposing an attack penalty and causes them to grant combat advantage for a turn. It is an effect, so no attack roll required.

The level 16 feature causes your quasit and all summons to gain a damage bonus, so there is extra incentive to take summoning magic (not that I needed more).

Finally at 20th-level you can summon a huge blast of hordlings that deals damage and prones targets. It also creates a zone that lets you spend a standard action to deal automatic damage and prone all creatures inside (or more damage if they are already prone). Oh, the zone lasts the entire encounter. The only downside is that it is not friendly, so you gotta be careful not to tear up your allies.

I like this paragon path because it is very thematic. I do not really give a fuck if the quasit can be abused by douchebag DMs, as you can always kill it and summon it later anyway (I would just allow a character to dismiss it). Otherwise I can see it bringing some interesting social roleplaying to the table, giving suggestions and trying to tempt the character. I would have honestly preferred it to be an imp (devil), because then it could literally play devil’s advocate.

Excerpts: Evil Campaigns

The first look at Book of Vile Darkness concerns campaign themes and an arc that will hopefully unify an evil party to work together long enough to see results. Staples such as conquest and destroying the world are present, along with working against other evil forces and killing gods. Running an evil campaign can be a tricky business, and in my experience players tend to use it as an excuse to wreak havoc without any direction. Kind of like Chaotic Neutral, except that there might be more murder depending on your groups definition.

There is not a lot of information, and hopefully these concepts are expanded upon. At the least I hope that it offers better stuff than a bunch of weak-ass feats and prestige classes that we got from the original Book of Vile Darkness.

Excerpt: Fey Beast Tamer

Only four themes? Really?

The main attraction to this theme is the beast companion you get, which can be a blink dog, displacer beast, fey panther, or owlbear, all of which seem pretty strong for what is in all honesty an optional option.

Yeah they only have half your usual hit points as a cap, but—for example—allies adjacent to a displacer beast gain a +1 power bonus to all defenses, while those next to a blink dog can teleport to another square next to it as a move action. In addition the level 5 and 10 features let you have combat advantage against any enemy next to your companion, and communicate normally with it and similar enemies respectively. Like spirit companions if they die you burn a healing surge and can just conjure it again from the Feywild as a minor action (though if you wait for a rest it comes back with full hit points).

The powers let you heal them for free, use a move action to send it back to the Feywild, and transform into whatever your companion is. None seem particulary neat; though safe banishment is an at-will, it takes a move action to remove and re-summon it. I think making it an immediate interrupt-encounter to save it (and a healing surge) would have been a lot better and more thematic. On a similar vein, companion form gives you your companion’s aura, but the use of any power ends the effect. Kind of meh.

Anyway, I guess the balancing act is that their defenses are rather tame (13-15 to start with), making them tempting and frail targets. Oh well, the only player I expect to pick this up is Randy, and that is just to have an owlbear companion as part of an inside joke from a previous campaign.

Excerpt: Item Curses

In past editions I never used cursed items unless a pre-published adventure specifically mentioned them because in most cases they were a minor nuisance; any party with a cleric could basically get rid of it after taking a nap, assuming that no one had a remove curse spell prepared/scroll on hand (if the item even required it). Of course if your campaigns ever cranked it up to 11, then analyze dweomer became an option and cursed items stopped being a liability (which was just keeping in theme with older-edition magic’s ability to just side-step problems entirely).

4th Edition’s model for curses is making them category specific item properties that can never be detected, and remain dormant until the curses’s trigger is met. For example a periapt of foul rotting acts normal until you take a specific amount of damage, at which point it infects you with a disease. So, pretty similar to how 3rd Edtion operated, but easier to apply to items. The key difference is that once you figure out that an item is bad, you can try to strip away the curse and “fix” them with the same Arcana check, making them much easier to deal with than in past editions.

I have only just started including cursed items in my Heirs of Ruin campaign, partially because I feel that it fits with Dark Sun’s concept of magic as a flawed art, but also because I wanted to try and make my players make some hard choices; yeah, those iron armbands give you a damage bonus, but when you are bloodied they give you a damage penalty. I had intended to give players opportunities to restore them to normal, but with a bit more effor than a simple, low-risk skill check.

Really this is only issue I have with item curses as I currently understand them, and and will rule in most cases that must have access to Enchant Item and/or need to go on quests in order to change some cursed items back to normal. At the least, they are going to have to choose between living with the curse or burning ritual components.

Excerpt: New Armor

I just got around to posting about the weapon excerpt today, and we are already at new armor. You will need to actually scope out the pdf preview to get any hard mechanics, which includes full stats for all the suits of armor that were still “missing” (well, except for the chain shirt). Aside from filling in the gabs, new armors are further differentiated from the old by having either the tough, durable, or barbed property.

Tough lets you turn the first crit you suffer in combat to a normal hit, durable reduces damage you take from the first attack in an encounter (and has to be repaired afterwards to regain the property), and barbed causes a creature to take damage based on your level when you escape a grab, or that creature escapes your grab.

So, that is pretty cool. I also really dig the robe of the archmage (level 20 rare); it gives you a bonus to Fort and Will, lets you prep a utility spell of your level or lower for free, and lets you lose half your hit points in order to max out your damage on the next arcane attack you make. 

Excerpt: New Weapons

In addition to magic items it looks like feats are also on the menu at Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium. Though we get a dozen names, only two of the “strike specialization” feats are actually shown, which let you reduce bonus damage from power strike in order to lump on some other benefit like dazing or attacking Fortitude instead of Armor Class. Considering books that I would assume were intended for DMs have had paragon paths in the past, this does not come across as too odd to me, though I am curious as to whether or not people are going to label this book as an “essentials” book by virtue of it having content for Essentials classes.

Another juicy bit previewed is a flame tongue weapon, which is a level 10 rare item with some badass stuff; the crit damage is slightly higher than usual at a d8, it grants fire resistance, once per encounter after you down an enemy, each adjacent enemy takes automatic damage (great for minion cleaning), and it has an encounter attack that deals fire damage plus ongoing fire damage to a close blast. As an added bonus the fire resistance and damaging features scale with the weapon’s enhancement bonus. The only real drawback is that you cannot turn off the fire damage part (though despite the flavor content stating that they glow brightly, it neither provides illumination nor penalizes your Stealth).

Heroes of Shadow Feats

The last preview for Heroes of Shadow showcases a bunch of feats. I like a lot of them, but some of them seem very…focused. For example, Legioncaller of Moil gives your summoned shadow critters a bonus to attack rolls and defenses, while Executioner of Undeath lets you reroll any damage dice when attacking undead once. While both are focused, Legioncaller of Moil differs in that you have greater control of how it applies to your characters, as well as when it will be used. With Executioner of Undeath? That depends on what the DM throws at you (as well as, I suppose, your knowledge of what the campaign/adventure will be about).

Another potentially problematic feat is Ghost Scorpion Strike. The compendium lists 264 monsters with insubstantial somewhere in their stat block, plenty of which are in Seekers of the Ashen Crown, Scepter Tower of Spellgard, or other WotC adventures. At least 41 of those are wraiths of some sort, many of which have necrotic resistance and poison immunity. This might be fine for wizards packing disrupt undead or mages with the right specialization to ignore necrotic resistance, but honestly how many of these do you expect to fight? Same goes for Tainted Wounds. Yeah, stripping away healing is all well and good, but there isn’t exactly a plethora of monsters with regeneration (or any other healing abilities).

Despite a handful of feats that will invariably be added to the pile of trap options, there are a few really good ones in the mix. I particularly like Spectral Step, which makes you insubstantial whenever you burn an Action Point. It only lasts a turn, but taking only half damage from basically everything can be a big help when you need to move, or setting up readied actions for area-effect attacks. There’s also entire categories of feats that we only see by name (except for the Revenant Racial, which already exist). Shadowborn and Winterkin feats will give you thematic abilities associated with the Shadowfell. How well they will compete against other options? We’ll see, though many Multiclass feats just don’t seem to cut it nowadays.

Heroes of Shadow: Excerpt and Table of Contents

Today’s Heroes of Shadow excerpt pertains to shadow magic, and all that that entails. I like that it specifically addresses what exactly differentiates it from arcane magic (or really, any other power source). Where arcane magic often requires rigorous study (warlocks are lazy), shadow magic involves using various rituals to exchange part of your soul, or simply embracing the dark side.

Wait, shadow scholarship? Scratch what was said before, as it looks like some still have to study in order to use shadow magic. Also, it involves negative emotions and the “darker aspects of arcane/divine” power. So, more or less the grim-dark of arcana. Since this is how it operated in past editions, I’m not too disappointed, just confused by an almost immediate contradiction.

As an added bonus, the table of contents is also available for download. It’s not much, but does give us some more insight into, well, the contents.

Chapter 1 looks to be entirely flavor content, featuring information on shadow magic and the Shadowfell. Since I’m planning a campaign based around Orcus, undead, and the Shadowfell, any information is handy to have.

Chapter 2 will have the executioner, blackguard (paladin), vampire, binder (warlock), and extra options for the cleric (including the death domain for warpriests), warlock (including the gloom pact for hexblades), and of course necromancy and nethermancy schools for mages. The vampire paragon path is called the vampire noble, and since the two bloodlines (beguiler and stalker) are mentioned at the end, I’m guessing the vampire is going to be “Essentials” style. This is fine, as I’d rather have a vampire class with a narrow focus that works, as opposed to a broad implementation that doesn’t.

Chapter 3 is has several pages of content each for the revenant, shadw, vryloka, dwarf, eladrin, elf, halfling, and human. Dusk elves is listed, which makes me wonder if its going to be a subrace (like the winterkin eladrin or that other elf article).

Chapter 4 features ten paragon paths (including the shadow dancer), four epic destinies, feats (with only an Adventurer category mentioned), and equipment.

Divine Power: Rituals

Looks like there will be eight new rituals in Divine Power. The one that interests me the most is Create Holy Water. Its only level 1 and probably will do wonders against undead and likely evil-aligned immortals. Not much of note, though they do preview one of the rituals.

Adjure

Filled with righteous authority, you order an immortal entity to serve you.

Level: 16
Category: Binding
Time: 1 hour
Duration: 8 hours or until discharged
Component Cost: 3,000 gp
Market Price: 7,500 gp
Key Skill: Religion

You command an immortal creature whose level does not exceed yours. The subject of this ritual must be able to see and hear you and must remain within 5 squares of you for the entire time necessary to perform the ritual. Because most creatures do not willingly submit to this ritual, you must usually make the creature helpless or restrain the creature by means of a Magic Circle ritual. Unless it is prevented from doing so, the creature can leave at any time. Finally, you must be able to communicate with the creature, or the ritual automatically fails.

To determine the extent of your authority over the subject, you engage in a special skill challenge during the time it takes to perform the ritual. The DCs for the checks in this challenge are equal to the subject’s level + 10. Religion is the primary skill; each time you or an ally succeeds on a Religion check in the challenge, you or an ally can use Diplomacy, History, Arcana, or Intimidate for one subsequent check. Once you have amassed 3 failures or achieved 10 successes, the skill challenge ends. Consult the following table and apply the effect associated with the number of successes you achieved.

Number of Successes	Effect
0 or 1	The creature has authority over you and can issue one command that you must obey, a task that requires up to a day of effort.
2 or 3	You have immediate authority over the creature. You can command the creature to perform one task that takes no more than 5 minutes.
4 or 5	You have moderate authority over the creature. You can command the creature to perform a task that requires up to a day of effort.
6 or 7	You have significant authority over the creature. You can command the creature to perform a task that requires up to a week of effort.
8 or 9	You have great authority over the creature. You can command the creature to perform a task that requires up to a month of effort.
10	You have ultimate authority over the creature. You can command the creature to perform a task that requires up to a year and a day of effort.

When the specified task is completed, the ritual is discharged, and the creature (or you) is released from service. You can request any kind of service that does not compel the subject to obey multiple commands, force the subject to engage in combat, or ensure the subject’s death. (The subject can engage in combat to achieve a task if it wishes, but combat cannot be required.) If the task is impossible, such as commanding a creature that cannot fly to soar into the sky, the creature can ignore the command.

Excerpt: Favored Soul

You can finally download the article. The favored soul is an avenger paragon path that basically turns you into an angel as you level up. You gain wings at level 16, which is the highlight of the class and starts to set the benchmark for a static flight speed.

You can burn an action point to do something and let an ally burn a healing surge and you gain a bonus to defenses when your hp is maxed out. Radiant rush works on your enmity target, dealing damage with a push and daze, and you can use it while charging. Celestial skirmish (level 20 daily) is pretty brutal, boosting your fly speed by 2, giving you +6 against opportunity attacks, and allowing you to make three attacks against separate targets with increasing returns the more you successfully land a hit.

The only issue I noticed from a purely mechanical standpoint was that you gain flight at level 16, but wings of angels (level 12 utility) increases your flight speed by 4. Since you technically dont even have a fly speed listed at all, I’m inclined to think that this by the rules shouldnt work. Oh well, if players cannot get a power that grants flight before then, I’ll just let them walk with a Speed of 4.

Aside from that minor molehill (that I’m sure has been made into several mountain ranges on the forums), looks good. Its one of those “duuuh” things that I didnt think about, having a divine character gain the qualities of an angel. Its like they took the angelic avenger (PH, pg 73) and cranked it up to 11.