OSSR: The book of VD

[Prak]

The demon dragon sucks by itself, but the idea it presents is fascinating: A demon possessed him, and while controlling him forced him to take a highly addictive drug until he became addicted to it. The demon arranges for a dose to be delivered once per day. If the dragon fights the possession, the demon's like "Fine, but you gotta find your own Luhix from now own. Oh, and withdrawal will probably kill you". Said dragon could probably make his fortitude saves to throw it off anyway, but imagine if that was done to someone who didn't have a great will save? Yeah, that's fucking evil and could make for an interesting NPC. Just a different one, not this one.

I actually used that same idea to explain how The Hungry took over the Metal Workers Guild in Finality, only with Royal Blood Jelly. I didn't know about this being in BoVD, though.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Update pending me getting the interblag running. I do not want to make an entry using my phone, which lacks a keyboard.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Alright, the internet is on, so now I'm going to talk about the most METAL feats ever written.

Mood Music. Yes, I know it's not metal, go fuck yourself with horse dildos.

Chapter 4: Feats

The chapter opener is a marilith torturing a human surrounded by vrocks. True story: I briefly associated with a chick that masturbated looking at this picture. And thus ended our association, because even I have my limits. (No linkage because boobs).

The feats have a lot of crap and a lot of useful tools. Due to this book being a DM tool, the feats tend to be weird. There's neat stuff if you're willing to pick through them. The book has a new category of feats: Vile Feats. These feats are only available to intelligent, evil beings who are a servant of some higher evil power. Not all of the feats are vile; some don't even require you to be evil. Evil and Vile feats are marked as such. Evil, a sin, is alive. Lewd did I live, evil i did dwel. Go deliver a dare, vile god. Rats live on no evil star. * Here we go:

Boost Spell-Like Ability: Adds +2 to the save DC of a spell-like ability. It was written before Ability Focus was, so it's not quite fair to compare it with the better 3.5 ability. I could imagine since they give untyped bonuses, they stack.

Boost Spell Resistance: Again, this was before 3.5 that gave a similar feat. Evil only!

Corrupt Spell: Evil only! This spell looks good; it adds the evil tag to spells (which I don't think I need to explain why that's awesome), as well as making half of the damage cut through any sort of energy resistance and immunities for the low, low price of +1 spell level! However, there's a catch: You have to take it once for every spell you want to apply it to!. Probably a copy and paste error from the similar Corrupt Spell-like Ability feat, but I don't know Mr. Cordell well enough (or at all) to divine RAI in this case.

Corrupt Spell-Like Ability: EVIL! As Corrupt Spell, but only applies three times a day.

Dark Speech: Vile! Although I question that, because there are canon instances of non-evil characters speaking the dark speech.. As mentioned before, it has its uses, I just think turning a CR 2 bee swarm into an epic level sorcerer was too funny to not harp on.

Deformity: various: Vile! There's a whole chain of them, and I intend on going over them all. They tend to give you bonuses to intimidate and bonuses to diplomacy versus other evil creatures, and one gives you -2 to search and spot, but lets you see invisible things for a minute per day. Note that being way too skinny or hugely obese is considered vile in D&D terms, and I think that I've gamed with two or three people that wasn't one or the other...

Disciple of Darkness/Thrall to Demon: Vile! One enslaves you to a devil, the other to a demon. They both give you +1 to a D20 roll when doing something evil.

Empower Spell-like ability: It applies empower spell multiple times a day. Must be popular, because different versions of this spell pop up a LOT.

Evil Brand: Vile! Gives you +2 to diplomacy and intimidate when dealing with evil creatures. There are a LOT of feats that give such bonuses; most of the vile feats add to this. If I am ever playing an evil campaign, I'm totally playing a diplomancer with vile feats out the ass.

Lichloved: Vile! Also gross. Having sex with dead things makes mindless undead see you as undead as well. Which means they won't attack unless commanded to, or you attack first. I wonder if there's any non-gross undead to pork, because that's a pretty good benefit.

Malign Spell focus: Evil! Adds +2 DC to all your spells with the [Evil] tag. Combine with the previously mentioned Corrupt Spell to throw evil Color Sprays and Glitterdusts around.

Mortalbane: Most famous for warlocks, it allows your spell like abilities to deal an extra +2d6 damage to "mortals", but halves normal damage against constructs, undead, and outsiders (Elementals are mortal? Fey are mortal? huh...). Works a couple times a day.

Poison Immunity: You are immune to ONE type of poison. Now, there's a lot of new poisons in this book, and by a strict, literal reading of the rules small centipede venom isn't the same as large centipede venom. If you relax that restriction, you could potentially have something you'd be willing to wipe your ass with because you won't be taking this feat even at its most loose interpretation.

Quicken Spell-Like Ability: Another one of THESE feats. It affects spell-like abilities. It makes them quickened.

Sacrificial Mastery: VILE! Gives you +4 to Knowledge: Religion checks to sacrifice sentient beings to evil gods. If you're a PC and are sacrificing things to evil gods, this is a feat to take, some of those bonuses are pretty bangin'. This is where I'm going to rag on the Book of ED for missing a chance: If they were trying to multiply the book of VD by -1, they missed their chance here. There are TONS of RL religious rituals that involved sacrifice. Animals, crops, even yourself (some devout hindus are hardcore motherfuckers). They could have multiplied this by -1, so not only did the authors not think hard about the book, they were lazy about what they DID do.

Verminfriend: VILE! Fucking anti-arachnite propaganda sneaking into this book. So liking bugs makes you evil, well that means me, my second cousin, and my niece are all going to hell. I mean, I'm probably going to hell anyway because of all the sinning, but that's not the point!

Vile Ki Strike: Vile! This spell gives you +1 bullshit damage. It's called "vile" damage, but I'm going to refer to it as bullshit damage. Because it's BULLSHIT. It's damage that can only be healed in a consecrated or hallowed area. Bonus points for requiring a 15 charisma. Charisma is not only a stat that monks typically dump, it's literally the only stat a monk does NOT need! Also comes in Martial strike and natural weapon versions.

Violate Spell: EVIL! This feat is "better" than Corrupt Spell, in the fact that this feat is used when the DM feels like a dick but it's not actually more useful to a player character. As Corrupt Spell, but half damage is BULLSHIT damage. Which means no healing until you get back to church.

Violate Spell-Like Ability: See Violate Spell, except it applies to Spell-Like abilities, and you don't have to be evil to take it. Or have to even have a spell-like ability. Seriously, this feat has no prerequisites...

[Prak]

Dark Speech: Vile! Although I question that, because there are canon instances of non-evil characters speaking the dark speech.. As mentioned before, it has its uses, I just think turning a CR 2 bee swarm into an epic level sorcerer was too funny to not harp on.

I tend to see it as the difference between knowing the language, and how to use the language for magical effects.

Lichloved: Vile! Also gross. Having sex with dead things makes mindless undead see you as undead as well. Which means they won't attack unless commanded to, or you attack first. I wonder if there's any non-gross undead to pork, because that's a pretty good benefit.

Wait, she's incorporeal, isn't she? Fuck it, there's a kink for that.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I am aware of the kink; I have read the journals in Yngvild Barrow.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Does Corrupt/Violate Spell work on summons, say Summon Swarm or Insect Plague?

[Prak]

Huh, it also just occurred to me that haunt shifting something into a sex toy should count as well. So make a skeleton, haunt shift it into your favourite dildo/pocket pussy/pony fuckdoll, and go to town.

Also, I was actually talking about the totally real paraphilia of Spectrophilia, which my first girlfriend had.

[RobbyPants]

I wonder if there's any non-gross undead to pork, because that's a pretty good benefit.

Depending on your source material, vampires.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Huh, it also just occurred to me that haunt shifting something into a sex toy should count as well. So make a skeleton, haunt shift it into your favourite dildo/pocket pussy/pony fuckdoll, and go to town.

Somehow I don't see that ending well...

[Prak]

Depends on the model of undeath you're working with. If it's Playing with Fire, a skeleton in a dildo is perfectly harmless.

[K]

The problem is that "mindless undead" is a super short list. Basically, it has "basic animate dead skeletons zombies" on and it and maybe one or two more.

Even your average ghoul is someone you can have deep intellectual conversations with (and enjoy those conversations because it has a good CHA).

So the reward for gross undead sex is that the least-threatening undead no longer attack you.

[hyzmarca]

The problem is that "mindless undead" is a super short list. Basically, it has "basic animate dead skeletons zombies" on and it and maybe one or two more.

Even your average ghoul is someone you can have deep intellectual conversations with (and enjoy those conversations because it has a good CHA).

So the reward for gross undead sex is that the least-threatening undead no longer attack you.

Your reward for gross undead sex is gross undead sex. The feat is just icing. Unfortunately, you have to actually spend a feat slot to get it and it isn't very spectacular.

[Dean]

The chapter opener is a marilith torturing a human surrounded by vrocks. True story: I briefly associated with a chick that masturbated looking at this picture. And thus ended our association, because even I have my limits.

Limits on how badass your chicks are.

[Schleiermacher]

The thing about vile BULLSHIT damage is that it isn't actually a damage type, it's just a tag. So Violate Spell is actually not heapo better than Corrupt Spell, just different, because the half of the Violated Fireball (or whatever) that's BULLSHIT damage is still bullshit fire damage that gets reduced normally.

[Lich-Loved]

The problem is that "mindless undead" is a super short list. Basically, it has "basic animate dead skeletons zombies" on and it and maybe one or two more.

Even your average ghoul is someone you can have deep intellectual conversations with (and enjoy those conversations because it has a good CHA).

So the reward for gross undead sex is that the least-threatening undead no longer attack you.

Yeah well, if when the zombie apocalypse comes, I will not only be totally safe, but will get a prime chance to score some of that almost-fresh 10/10 flesh.

Sex with the undead is a long-term investment; you gotta get in now before things get hostile if you really want to capitalize later.

[codeGlaze]

Book of Erectile Dysfunction Exalted Deeds

This is kind of funny, since the thread title made me think of the Book of Venereal Diseases.

Aw, you beat me to it.

[Koumei]

Yeah well, if when the zombie apocalypse comes, I will not only be totally safe, but will get a prime chance to score some of that almost-fresh 10/10 flesh.

If it turns out to be a wight apocalypse or something, you're in for a very bad day.

[RobbyPants]

Yeah well, if when the zombie apocalypse comes, I will not only be totally safe, but will get a prime chance to score some of that almost-fresh 10/10 flesh.

Sex with the undead is a long-term investment; you gotta get in now before things get hostile if you really want to capitalize later.

It seems very fitting that you would weigh in on the Lichloved feat.

[Username17]

Higher level mindless undead exist, Blood Amniotes and Charnel Hounds and shit. The big problem is that as you get higher in level, the chance that you are going to face a mindless undead without a commander approaches zero. After about level 4 or so, you're just never ever going to meet up with mindless undead that don't have at the very least an evil cleric in the background telling them to kill you. And in D&D-land, it's just very difficult to get your TruBlood Romance on before level 5.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Chapter 5: Prestige Classes

The opening is a diseased, corpulent man getting ready to devour a maggot-infested corpse. For some reason, this picture amuses me.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/bovd_ ... _620_8.jpg

Anyway, the prestige classes here are popular in Exemplars of Evil. I am fond of a couple of them but really most of them are lame, and some are just way the fuck out there. Which leads to more lulz.

Let's dive in, shall we?

Cancer Mage: As alluded to before, this is the class that breaks the two diseases mentioned earlier that grant cumulative bonuses every day. At first level, you gain +1d6 sneak attack and (as the book specifies) immune to the ill effects of diseases, but you suffer from the aesthetic effects (so you look and smell grody, but don't take any ability damage). The class does in fact have some interesting things going for it, just not a whole lot. You get a slow sneak attack progression, you get the ability to cast Contagion and Poison several times a day, you can give diseases points of your own intelligence for scrying or domination (which is my personal favorite), you get a free chain shirt and +4 natural armor (did Amulets of Natural Armor stack with existing natural armor in 3.0? That would vastly improve the class), and you can turn yourself into a disease and infect people, letting them carry you around, dominating them, and you even cheat death while you are a disease. I wouldn't call it a power class, but there are a lot of neat things this class can do that would definitely make for a very interesting villain.

Demonologist: This class makes me twitch. A little history lesson: Back in the day when this came out, I got into a long series of arguments with some person whose name escapes me on the WotC manure boards. I say this class a balls, he said the class was awesome and " a conjurer wizard just doesn't have the abilities to bind demons and angels like this class". Of course now that I'm older and wiser, I realize this class can get you Planar Binding at a relatively low level and therefore breaks the game before anyone else (as well as having a lot of powerful spells at low level to cherry-pick from), but back then I spent way too many hours arguing on the internet.

Anyway, I'll try to look at this class with fresh eyes. First off, it's a spellcasting class that doesn't give levels in spellcasting: if has its own progression with 4 caster levels. Seriously, it requires ability to cast 3rd level spells and doesn't do +1 per level, and doesn't even do bullshit Nar Demonbinder or Sublime Chord spellcasting where you start with 4th level spells and get to 9th by the end. The class doesn't give too much on interest at all: you get Charm and Dominate that bypasses SR but only works on chaotic evil outsiders. And the DC is tiny. You get Telepathy by 9th level, some random resistances, and you get the mindshattering ability to summon higher level monsters with Summon Monster spells, but you only get up to SM4 in the class. The Summon Monster bump applies to all caster levels you have, but cheesing Summon Monster spells is not really something I want to spend a lot of time thinking about. The spell list is nice, and unlike other 3.0 spontaneous casters you have access to all spells on the list. Still, the only thing I can think of is having a demonologist on a chain so you can get cheap scrolls scribed for UMD checks. And I still don't see why a wizard can't have a decent charisma and bind things himself...

Diabolist: It's a spellcaster PrC that grants 10/10 spellcasting and anything else, so it's worth taking. You get the ability to turn one spell per day per level into an evil spell and have it deal a small amount of extra damage to good creatures. The idea is that you're going to boost fireballs and lightning bolts, but you're not going to do that; you're going to take Malign Spell Focus and cast Spells that Fucking Kill People with a bump in DC and not care about the damage.

Disciple of Asmodeus: And here we have some Giant Frog. This class are sick. It's a spellcasting class that doesn't have any spellcasting prerequisites. If you're not a spellcaster, fuck you. If you are one, fuck you as well because it's a 6/10 progression. You get the ability to cast spell-like abilities which you probably don't care about.

Disciple of Baalzebul: It's a PrC for a silver-tongued rogue or bard, with some summoning and charming abilities thrown in. I give it props for doing something I can explain thoroughly in one sentence and doing it halfway effectively (although it's not a power class).

Disciple of Dispater: This class was a favorite of the CO board, and might still be as far as I know. It's a fighter class, and the most compelling ability is that it triples the threat range of iron weapons that specifically stacks with Improved Critical. Having an iron pick that has a crit of 17-20/x4 sounds pretty nice to me. Plus some filler abilities, but that seems to be the big one that gets people drooling.

Disciple of Mammon: I would like to point out the BaB progression: it's medium, but starts with +1, it's an +8/+10 BaB class. To my knowledge, it's the only class with such a BaB progression. Other than some hilarious abilities where you can redirect attacks to your allies (a staple for any cheesy villain), it doesn't really have a coherent goal and comes off as a collection of richard maneuvers rather than an actual PrC.

Disciple of Mephistopheles: This is a warrior PrC. Full BaB, some neat fire abilities (being able to cast Hellfire and Hellfire Storm at will is kind of neat), and you never, ever take the 9th level of this class. A warrior could do well with this class. The flavor text say that spellcasters are the most common members of this class, and there are a couple token abilities that benefit spellcasters but forget that, this is a warrior class.

Lifedrinker: I hate this class. It's a vampire class. Most of its abilities let you cast spells better. IT GRANTS NO SPELLCASTING LEVELS. There's a couple decent abilities, but I refuse to give any vampire NPC I create this class.

Mortal Hunter: It's an outsider-only class, but I'll give it credit: the abilities paint a coherent picture. You hunt mortals, and wear their skin to infiltrate their society with. Powerwise, it's not great compared to a spellcaster. And why can't fey take this? Wearing human skin and hunting mortals seem to be right up the Unseelie's alley. Like the Demonologist, it has a good spell list to poach spells from.

Soul Eater: I always thought this class fell a bit flat. You're a living non-humanoid that drains levels and can use those levels drained to buff yourself. That begs the question as to why such a thing exists? 2 ranks of Knowledge: Arcana and Weapon Focus doesn't paint me a good picture here. Good BaB, so-so HP.

Thrall of Demogorgon: A lame class. The good thing is this class does make a mention that if you don't have spellcasting levels you instead gain a bonus feat, except it's a 4/10 progression and you won't have any spellcasting levels going in. You get some filler abilities then your capstone is winning D&D and getting the EVIL ending casting limited wish once a day. That's a really good ability but I won't pretend anyone is going to take 10 levels of this shit.

Thrall of Graz'zt: 6/10 spellcasting progression, gives you a limited version of sneak attack with your spells and bonus to charisma skills. SNORE.

Thrall of Juiblex: A fighter BaB that gives you a touch attack, some weaksause summoning abilities, and makes you immune to crits as a capstone. Although the ooze summoning ability seems to be at-will and not limited to uses per day, it doesn't give you the ability to control or communicate with the oozes. Considering that oozes don't discriminate in what they consume, that seems like something that's not very good.

Thrall of Orcus: Like Thrall of Demogorgon, this is another 4/10 progression or bonus feat, except you need to be able to cast 1st level necromancy spells to get in. This class makes you stink a lot (that is not a joke). If you suck for 9 levels, you get to summon a ghost or vampire that has 1 fewer level than you do. Which means you can get a higher CR'ed buddy that is better than you for a few rounds a day, and at 10th you can summon a nightwing. Nightwings are pretty awesome but I'm not going to pretend it's worth it.

Ur-Priest: The priest of the evil humans mentioned in one of the previous chapters. The Ur-Priests hate gods and steal spells from them. Somehow that's evil, even though about 1/3 of the gods are evil themselves and are probably giving spells to their priests so they can make the world a worse place. This is one of the other places where the book falls into the "god=good" trap that BoED was lousy with. Also, the Ur-Priest very easily splits the game right in half without too much effort, so it's a total bust.

Vermin Lord: Freaking anti-bug propaganda. I think bugs are kind of cute for the most part, although I find parasitism equal parts repelling and fascinating. Anyway, it's a druid PrC with 6/10 progression, no wild shaping, and some abilities that are less than a wildshaping druid would have (have Mandibles, or turn into a bear? Grow wings, or turn into a dire hawk?). At capstone the vermin lord can create and join hive minds, and use the sorcerer levels that the hive mind grants. That's pretty badass, if only the rest of the class wasn't a flop; this has potential to be awesome.

Warrior of Darkness: More like Snore-rior of Boring. You get some physical buffs and decent saves and HP.

[Username17]

The Thrall of Jubilex's unlimited ooze summoning had some pretty weird uses, and you could take the class at a stupidly low level if I recall correctly.

The Verminlord's real problem was that "bugs" is not actually a defined term in D&D. Like, at all. It specifically mentions the whole bug thing working on Gelugon, but they aren't actually different from Cornugons from a game mechanical standpoint. Obviously, the game needed a "this is a bug" subtype, and that should have happened instead of the Vermin type. Heck, the Book of VD would have been a fine place to introduce such a subtype and then grandfather it into 3.5. But they didn't do that. Abeil and Thri-Kreen are Monstrous Humanoids, Gelugons and Mezzoloths are [Evil] Outsiders, Spider Eaters and Phase Spiders are Magical Beasts, and so on. There's no game mechanics for the Verminlord to grab onto, and instead of writing some the authors just... didn't.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Judging by the prerequisites, if you got your base fort to +6 by second or third level you were cleared, the only "hard" prerequisite was 5 ranks in Escape Artist.

[fectin]

Level one of Thrall of Graz'zt doesn't suck. You get your caster progression and also at-will (?) charm person. That doesn't suck, but don't stick around for level two.

[K]

The Soul Eater got a lot more interesting after Libris Mortis came out and had that magic item enhancement that let you transfer your energy drain attack to your weapons. The various energy drain feats in that book also nicely add to the concept.

I could totally see playing a Fighter/Soul Eater who drained levels by two-weapon fighting people or archery, but sometimes you shoot soul lasers or shapechange into big monsters.

I think you are also underestimating the Thrall of Orcus. It's the Fighter class that you take after you dropped a level on Assassin or Blackguard, so you get a bunch of feats, weird powers like permanent flight and summoning, full BAB, and two good saves.

The Lifedrinker makes me sad. It's a Dungeon Magazine reprint that I was so into that I convinced Frank to buy the issue and email the text to me while I was living in Japan, but then I saw how badly it does everything.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I think you are also underestimating the Thrall of Orcus. It's the Fighter class that you take after you dropped a level on Assassin or Blackguard, so you get a bunch of feats, weird powers like permanent flight and summoning, full BAB, and two good saves.

That is a perspective I did not account for. I tend to get a bit distracted by the nekkid anorexic chick with (comparatively) oversized breasts in the artwork. I mean, I'm not aroused by it, but I get the feeling that I'm looking into someone else's fetish and it bothers me...