Café de Nuit

I haven't had the opportunity to look through that much of the tome as yet, since I've only just returned home... however, I'm looking to use some of the information from the Blood of the Rat chapter to craft a campaign or three set just after the time the Reniers first settled in Mordent.

I'll likely have more to comment on, once I've had the opportunity to read through more of the book.

A couple of questions/comments for tec-goblin...

tec-goblin wrote:Well, I LOVED the book. Nice job. The PrCs take too much space, that's my only complaint (it's not bad, but most new rules in the book require at least 2 paragraphs each).

As a designer who is constantly trying to improve his work, I'd like to know why you think it's a problem that the new rules take up "too much space." (And I think you're going to hate the Hiregaard family description... there's a madness defect that takes up a couple of pages!)

My guess is that the prestige classes you don't care for are all going to be ones from my keyboard. Is that you think the rules are too convoluted? That too many words are spent saying something that could have been said with fewer words? Or do you just not like rules material in general?

I liked the new PrCs. The analyst, deceiver, accompished medium, people's champion and rumormonger are lovely!. The Hawkmaster has nice flavor. I was waiting years for something like the Scientist (who, definetely needed a lot of text to be described).
So, I have only problem with the fact that some of them take up too much space. And, yes, I hated the part about the Hiregaard path. I think that some of them could be written with less words (the hiregaard path could be replaced with just a paragraph or two of guidelines, some of the PrCs like the recruiter could take up less space if the spellcasting was replaced by some bonus feats or abilities and having a whole bonus feat list for the only one bonus feat the Deceiver gets is overkill). Sometimes, good ideas can be replaced with something shorter, which is more elegant, easier to remember, and leaves space for other kinds of material.

I am still reading it, though. I am finishing the Dilisnyas right now.

I look forward to seeing any other additional comments you may have.

I haven't finished the Zaroviches yet, but I loved the book. Reniers are great with their strange politics. I liked very much the fact that all thing Jacqueline is soooo good. Scientist rocks! (I will use the class for some Invisible College members from 7thSea), while the Hiregaard chapter makes Nova Vaasa interesting! D'Honaire and and Boritsis are everywhere, so it's so easy to incorporate them in the campaign.
I have noticed some errors in the book, I'll post them in the errata thread as soon as I finish it.

I finished the book and posted suggestions for errata in the errata thread.
I love the Reniers and the Boritsis!

I loved the book, especially the Mordenheim Family with the magic times made through science. SadlyI have no Ravenloft Campaigns going in table top, if I did I know that we would be using the book. Instead I must debate allowing the use of the famlies on my chat and I have not been able to decided on a method to do so yet. Limit the number of family members/decide who can play them/etc.

Steve
Head DM of Levkarest

Just got my copy on the day after Christmas, and I have to say that I'm deeply impressed! After the debacle of HoL and CoD, and the vague mediocrity of VRGttWD, I had begun to fear that only the Gazetteers would be truly outstanding. I was obviously incorrect! This book especially pleases me because I have a specific use for it in my current campaign.

One of my players is a Russian-speaker who fell very much in love with the whole steppelands/Russian plains feel of Nova Vaasa when I was talking to her about the Ravenloft setting. Her character concept was that she wanted to be the bastard daughter of a prominent nobleman, semi-acknowledged but not entitled to any inheritance, so she would be given pretty much a free hand in her own life. After describing the various noble houses of Nova Vaasa, from the previously established material, she came to the conclusion that she wanted her character to have a strong sense of justice, as well as a love of the common folk, so she picked the Hiregaards. I then mentioned (knowing that she knows virtually nothing about Ravenloft) that the house patriarch, Tristan, is a known womanizer, though otherwise considered an honorable man, and has a long-standing rivalry with a serial killer known as Malken, a fiend that has a habit of killing Tristan's lovers. She took to it immediately, even working her mother's death at Malken's hands into her backstory. Also, she decided that while she was present for the murder, she remembers nothing about it, not even the face of the man that killed her mother.

Her character is an aristocrat/ranger, with a plains cat as an animal companion. I think that when the truth finally comes out (as I plan to happen soon) the delicious irony of Malken's symbol being the plains cat and her own fascination with them may cause the player to have a fit. I've also personally decided that she's going to start having flashbacks to her mother's death pretty soon, and that the reason she can't remember anything of it is because she recognized the killer as her beloved father and couldn't cope with it.

Legacy of the Blood was very useful for me (since we're on a hiatus for the holidays) to help get a better feel of what life inside the Hiregaard family is like, especially for bastard children. What I find amazing is how close the book's conception of the family's stance on such things was to my own! (Great minds think alike, eh? )

There's another of my players who may be related to one of the families in the book as well, but I haven't actually decided if I want to use the plotline or not. The character is an ethnic Gundarakite, but he's tall, blond, and blue-eyed, and part of his backstory is that he never knew his father, and his mother refuses to speak of him. The only legacy he has of the man is his name, Engels. The name is fairly obviously Falkovnian (German), so of course I'm considering his possibly being a Drakov child or grandchild. Even if not, I've decided that his father was Falkovnian, if only because of the facts listed before. At the very least, it would be interesting to see how he copes with it, considering how much the character hates Falkovnians. (Not because they did anything bad to him... he's just bigoted.)

Legacy of the Blood is useful to me in a general sense as well, because three of the six characters in my party are known to be noble-born, so it's nice to see how the noblesse oblige mentality works in Ravenloft in greater detail. I also love the PrCs (especially Raptor Knight - holy crap!), and many of the feats are exceptionally good. I've also been waiting to see a "mad science" system for a while, and I have to admit that I really like this one; it doesn't add any new rules, only ways to interpret those rules in a different milieu, which I very much appreciate.

All in all, I think that LotB is truly magnificent, and I look forward to a possible follow-up book or books!

Hida Jiremi
(Jeremy Puckett)

hida_jiremi wrote: After the debacle of HoL and CoD, and the vague mediocrity of VRGttWD

huh? VRGttWD was mediocre?

IMHO, you should read it again

Joël

Joël of the Fraternity wrote:

hida_jiremi wrote: After the debacle of HoL and CoD, and the vague mediocrity of VRGttWD

huh? VRGttWD was mediocre?

IMHO, you should read it again

Joël

What didn't you like about VRGttWD, Hida?

The Nightmare Man wrote: What didn't you like about VRGttWD, Hida?

Let me state that while I really liked most of the in-character material from Gennifer and Laurie, and I deeply enjoyed the NPCs (especially Toben the Many), most of the rules material from VRGttWD was sub-par in my opinion. The challenge rating adjustments for salient abilities don't balance properly against one another, with many of them being far too powerful for the adjustment. I also don't usually appreciate the addition of new statistics to already-existing monsters (such as the change in Hide and Move Silently bonuses based on creature type), and the new feats and monsters were mostly terrible. Broadly, it's my least favorite VRG. While there is some good material in it (mostly fluff), the bad (mostly crunch) brings the overall rating down to mediocre in my opinion. I generally have a problem accomodating good flavor text with poor rules mods.

On the other hand, while I think that the Gazetteers are overall exceptional, the thing that has irritated me the most of any single thing from the new Ravenloft material was in one of them: the ret-con for basically all of Tristessa's backstory!

Hida Jiremi
(Jeremy Puckett)

On the other hand, while I think that the Gazetteers are overall exceptional, the thing that has irritated me the most of any single thing from the new Ravenloft material was in one of them: the ret-con for basically all of Tristessa's backstory!

Hida Jiremi
(Jeremy Puckett)[/quote]

Actually, "Servants of Darkness" and the "Shadowrift" modules are the products that first ret-con Tristessa's Backstory. It did not happen in the 3rd edition line but second edition. 3rd edition just carried on the new version from the two modules.

I haven't got a group to game with, yet. But it has given me the idea for a novel, but as WotC aren't planning on releasing any, it'll either stay in my mind or get written in a patchwork manner and submitted to this site.

It's about Telena Von Zarovich, if anyone wonders.

hida_jiremi wrote: Let me state that while I really liked most of the in-character material from Gennifer and Laurie, and I deeply enjoyed the NPCs (especially Toben the Many), most of the rules material from VRGttWD was sub-par in my opinion. The challenge rating adjustments for salient abilities don't balance properly against one another, with many of them being far too powerful for the adjustment. I also don't usually appreciate the addition of new statistics to already-existing monsters (such as the change in Hide and Move Silently bonuses based on creature type), and the new feats and monsters were mostly terrible. Broadly, it's my least favorite VRG. While there is some good material in it (mostly fluff), the bad (mostly crunch) brings the overall rating down to mediocre in my opinion. I generally have a problem accomodating good flavor text with poor rules mods.

Actually, Libris Mortis is soooo better than VRGttWD regarding rules and artwork that it proves much more useful. The fluff part of VRGttWD is greath though, and it has influenced my game very much. It was one of the loveliest readings of last years, so, I tend to regard it more like a artful novel which I like.

By the way, we just updated the list of RL feats, PRCs, spells and domains with the info from LotB. You can find these refernce files in the Wine Cellar.

Joël

I love LotB, but I really don't know where to start my comments. I agree with several things already stated, namely:

--I also prefer guidelines to straitjackets. I was more than a little upset to see the ex-paladin who apparently fell from grace simply because of his ancestry, althought this was mollified by the contrast of another paladin who was struggling against such urges.

--Likewise, AFAIC Artisa Juvenoth is delusional, and while I'll gladly use her and the Physician prestige class IMC, neither one of them has any blood connection to the Mordenheims.

--I don't see any problems with the Hiregaards, not even with the looonngg madness section. Matter of fact, it adds a whole new dimension to my concept of Malken as a DL, and may lead to an adventure that will shake Nova Vaasa to the ground.

--The absolute best parts IMO are the magic items and NPC's. What a collection!!! I'm running a game in Saragoss, of all places, and I'm finding ways to weave this material in!

hida_jiremi wrote:

The Nightmare Man wrote: What didn't you like about VRGttWD, Hida?

Let me state that while I really liked most of the in-character material from Gennifer and Laurie, and I deeply enjoyed the NPCs (especially Toben the Many), most of the rules material from VRGttWD was sub-par in my opinion. The challenge rating adjustments for salient abilities don't balance properly against one another, with many of them being far too powerful for the adjustment. I also don't usually appreciate the addition of new statistics to already-existing monsters (such as the change in Hide and Move Silently bonuses based on creature type), and the new feats and monsters were mostly terrible. Broadly, it's my least favorite VRG. While there is some good material in it (mostly fluff), the bad (mostly crunch) brings the overall rating down to mediocre in my opinion. I generally have a problem accomodating good flavor text with poor rules mods.

Well alot of the CR stuff was the authors taking existing powers and CRs from varient undead and then designing them via the new rules. This way all the misc. walking dead such as ghasts and jolly rogers and the like can be made with the crunch. So if some seem over-powered and some seem under-powered much of it can be traced back to that. Plus making CR isn't exactly and exact science.

Libris Moritis is alright but much of it seemed too unusual or fantastic for Ravenloft. Less emphasis on atmoshpere and the creep-factor and more emphasis on bigger, badder and tougher.

David of the Frat wrote:Libris Moritis is alright but much of it seemed too unusual or fantastic for Ravenloft. Less emphasis on atmoshpere and the creep-factor and more emphasis on bigger, badder and tougher.

I essentially interpreted most of the content of LM in the same way. However, some of the templates have some possible usage, perhaps as the result of arcane experimentation in some of the more "culturally" advanced Domains.