The Gaming Den

OK, I cracked it open. Yes, I'm biased toward material I've written/co-written for the Tome of Fiends. That being said, here are my impressions:

The details:
--The book is 150 pages long. It has 50 pages on locations in the Abyss, 30 on rules for RPing demons, 30 on statted Demon Lords, and 30 on new-ish demons (some are just 3.X versions of old demons from 2e or 1e). For the mathmatically inclined, thats 10 pages of actual rules.

--the possession rules are reprints from BOVD.

--the monsters are in a new "filler" format. This resembles the new and confusing Dungeon monster stat format, but each monster also includes an adventure hook, sample treasure (WTF?), combat tactics, flavor text, and other BS. Its just like writing up a monster as normal, but spending three times the page space. What an awesome way to avoid writing usuable material!

--Lots of material is just reprints. Some of the art is from Dungeon, Dark Speech is a reformatted version from the BOVD, and the "you are an evil guy" feats are also taken from the BOVD. Manual of the Planes material on the Abyss gets some additions.

--A three page chart on Abyssal Demon Lords with name and interests. Its like a historical family tree that just happens to look like a random-syllable generator for the names coupled with a random-verb/noun generator for the interests.

Most stupid things:
--The Spells: There is a spell that allows you to suck nothing out of a demon in exchange for massive permanent bonuses to another character (like you!). It costs XP and GP, and its permanent so it can be dispelled, but it does grant bonuses better than equipment (enhancement bonuses to stats equal to 1/4th the demon's stat mod, or competence bonuses to skills equal to half the demon's skill mod in that skill, though neither better than half your caster level.)

How about two spells that cost 250 XP each and let you add/exxhange or remove Abyssal Heritor feats. Can you get more metagame, please?

How about the fact that 50% of the spells are reprints from BOVD?

--The feats: There is a feat that allows you to cast an XP spell or create items at half cost, and all you have to do is have a bound demon within 30'. Sometimes your item might be cursed (10%).

There's another one for being a disciple of a demon lord. Most versions of it add tiny bonuses to things you don't care about, but the Demongorgon version allows you to summon a tanari for an hour if its CR is 1/2 your character level. Yes, this means that Demongorgon is the most popular guy to sell your soul to because he lets you use his succubus bvtches at 14th level (not joking about the soul part....it interferes with raises and you need higher level spells to do it).

The Abyssal Heritor feats all stack up, and most are awesome. I'd like to abuse the DR X feats/law, which means that by getting good feats you can get good things like natty armor, DR/law, a Fascinate ability, and a few other gems.

There's a feat to let people reroll a number of sneak dice equal to your heritor feats. I could see a really bangin' rogue build out there thats all about having the Abyss in your pants.

--The Monsters: There's a CR 4 incorporeal demon that puts guys to sleep, possesses sleeping guys, and has 26 HPs, DR 5/"you're not going to beat", and an AC of 17. Its a total party kill for any party even remotely near its CR. A lot of the monsters look like this (like a CR 6 Swarm that dazes people on top of its other crazy powers).

Tthe demon lords all have Astral Projection at will, meaning that you can't kill them unless you find their true body. They also get greater dispelling and [greater teleport, meaning that they can be killed in astral form and reappear two rounds to three rounds later at full hps and you will have a hard time using magic to hold them.

There's a HD 15 demon that can create and add any fiendish graft to a guy three times a day. Here's yet another way to abuse planar binding. Personally, I think that most of the fiendish graft blow, but that still doesn't mean I'm not going to make every one of my followers be covered in the things.

There's a demon that grants a small amount of power, but accepting that power is chaotic and an alignment violation. Its like they don't even know what alignment means,

Also, none of the monsters have an LA, even the really low CR monsters.

Oh, and there is another "fvckable" demon. It fvcks clerics (I'm not even joking).

---Random Encounter tables: Yes, they're back! Its just like not caring about game continuity or balance and just randomly writing filler material, but with all the randomness we love.

Seriously, its unusable. I'm not sure what they were thinking. Some fvcker is being paid by the word.

The Good:

--Rules for playing in the waters of the River Styx. I kind of needed that for the Tome of Fiends.

--Some of the demons are kind of neat. I also like the art for almost everything.

--The maps of the demon lord realms are nice. Not necessary for your game, or even always usuable, but they are nice.

--The site descriptions are flavorful. I won't read them, just like I don't read most of the flavor text for Realms and Eberron books, but thems the breaks.

--I like the feat that makes you demonically hot, adds to perform checks, and gives you a fascinate ability. Its not good or anything, but its kind of neat to say "yes, this feat says I'm hot and you can go fvck yourself. In fact, I can make you stare at my junk. Roll a Will save."

Final Evaluation:

When I convinced Frank to go head to head with WotC and design material for the same things at the same time, I was a little worried. Once in a while some really nice stuff comes out of their offices, and I'd hate to have anything I worked on be compared unfavorably to their stuff.

I am really quite relieved. Not only are the monsters, spells, and feats badly designed, but most of the material is just reprinted stuff from other books. The funny (or tragic) thing is that the reprinted stuff isn't even good.

The new flavor material on the Abyss is new....I can't fault them on that score. The problem is that its not compelling. Its like someone is doing a history paper on DnD settings and this is the result. Like most history papers, its filled with unnecessary writing, confusing tangents, and no overall point. Its interesting that an old green dragon flys over the Endless Maze to stop people from cheating by flying over the walls, but thats not information that inspires me to make better adventures.

Its easy to write sample treasure for monsters, but do I care? Honestly, if I wanted to give the party random treasure I can make up crap of equal quality in less time than it would take for me to find and read their text. The fact that I'm not going to even entertain the idea of using pre-written treasure is just a moot point.

At the end of the day, I have only this to say: this book adds nothing to the game. We should count ourselves lucky that so much of the book is flavor text, because that means the few mechanics in it can be easily spotted as broken and outlawed in our games. Hell, you can ban the whole book with a clear concience.

K wrote:I like the feat that makes you demonically hot, adds to perform checks, and gives you a fascinate ability. Its not good or anything, but its kind of neat to say "yes, this feat says I'm hot and you can go fvck yourself. In fact, I can make you stare at my junk. Roll a Will save."

Thats not a reason to buy the Fiendish codex.

That sounds more like a reason to buy Macho Women With Guns (d20).

Did I mention I'm considering buying Macho Women With Guns (d20).

My only hesitation right now is that it is d20, otherwise I want that title on my shelf.

Here is a gem: Blood War Conscript: Gain +1 on attack and damage rolls against lawful or good creatures. Vile feat indeed...

And yes, Abyss-bound soul is absurd. Hmm, Cold resistance 5 or double damage on a charge. Which to choose?

There are a few spells which seem quite powerful, most of which go to the bards(!). Beckoning call is 2nd-level, and makes the target move towards you and then stand to you flat-footed taking no actions. If you attack the effect ends, but your allies are apparently free to do what they please.

Extract Gift is just strange. At first glance it appears to be a way to get permanent slotless ability and skill bonuses for the same cost of slotted items. What it is, however, is a 'fsck you' spell. You can add harmful effects, and the worse those effects are the harder the spell is to resist. I thought this made no sense, and had to re-check that the bonus really was to DC and not to the skill or ability. Yep.
So what you do it spend 100 gp, give someone a +1 to Climb, and make it so that a demon can use Status on the target, communicate telepathically with the target, use Demand once per day on the target, see through the target's ears, and hear through the target's eyes (wait...). And get +7 to the spell's DC.

This is a 5th-level cleric/wizard spell, and you can bet that evil clerics will be abusing their prayer beads with this one.

Inner Beauty is great for good bards. It lasts 10 minutes per level, and (depending on whether the target is good or evil) Sickens or Stuns everyone within 15' of the target for 1d4 or one round. It also gives a stacking charisma and dexterity bonus or penalty. Basically, you tumble into your enemies and cast this on yourself. The next round you cast it on one of your stunned enemies (with that helpful +2 DC).

I think at some point Slime Wave was nerfed. Well, I'm pretty sure that it's back in it's un-nerfed state. It invokes the rules of 'face,' and deals 1d6 Con damage per 5' area of face for one round per level.

Vision of Entropy is a 2nd level spell which will cause the target to go from Shaken to Unconcious over 4 rounds.

The beauty of Extract Gift is that its basically an item creation spell.

You don't use the "bone the PC for more DC" options. You nail a demon with a Stone to Flesh or other "make helpless" effect, you drag it home, then you cast the spell and since the demon is helpless, he fails his save automatically, regardless of the DC.

If you can get the spell as a spell-like(which you can), then you get free stuff for nothing. Here's another reason to be a Spellstitched Undead.

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1158817698[/unixtime]]Extract Gift is just strange. At first glance it appears to be a way to get permanent slotless ability and skill bonuses for the same cost of slotted items. What it is, however, is a 'fsck you' spell. You can add harmful effects, and the worse those effects are the harder the spell is to resist. I thought this made no sense, and had to re-check that the bonus really was to DC and not to the skill or ability. Yep.
So what you do it spend 100 gp, give someone a +1 to Climb, and make it so that a demon can use Status on the target, communicate telepathically with the target, use Demand once per day on the target, see through the target's ears, and hear through the target's eyes (wait...). And get +7 to the spell's DC.

Only the demon can make a save, if it wishes - the other target must be willing.

If you have a demon you trust in your party tho.. letting it monitor other party members could be useful.

Fwib at [unixtime wrote:1158959997[/unixtime]]

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1158817698[/unixtime]]Extract Gift is just strange. At first glance it appears to be a way to get permanent slotless ability and skill bonuses for the same cost of slotted items. What it is, however, is a 'fsck you' spell. You can add harmful effects, and the worse those effects are the harder the spell is to resist. I thought this made no sense, and had to re-check that the bonus really was to DC and not to the skill or ability. Yep.
So what you do it spend 100 gp, give someone a +1 to Climb, and make it so that a demon can use Status on the target, communicate telepathically with the target, use Demand once per day on the target, see through the target's ears, and hear through the target's eyes (wait...). And get +7 to the spell's DC.

Only the demon can make a save, if it wishes - the other target must be willing.

If you have a demon you trust in your party tho.. letting it monitor other party members could be useful.

Use Extract Gift with the Fiendbinder PrC from ToM. It all becomes super easy then at that point.