Café de Nuit

I've been looking through the new book and it's quite impressive. I especially like the Archivist class (which has given me great ideas in updating the arcanist).

-I think I'll keep Ravenloft's fear/horror/madness system, which seem more indepth.

-I intend to use taint, but only as a result for spending too much time in Sinkholes of Evil, near extremely corrupt artifacts (oh, those poor Guardians), and certain evil outsiders.

-The Dread Necromancer is nice, but more likely to be seen as a villian.

-Interesting spells and feats.

-I wish they had gone more indepth in Dreams and Nightmares. Oh well, just use what they gave and toss in the Dreamwalking skill from MotP (setting some DCs for powers from my Nightmare Lands box).

-There are a couple of interesting monsters, as well as a lot of good advice for horror games.

I'm really pleased with it. It's a well done book.

Me too, I think it's a fun book. You smile reading a few parts obviously inspired by Ravenloft.

I also think the dream / nightmares rules is minimal compared to those we had in the NR 2e box. However, it is indeed a start.

Haven't read the PRC in detail, will do it now.

Joël

I'll tell you what is most applicable - the different traits for villians! Most of them just scream failed-powers-check!
I especially like the ones about having no fingernails and the one about the lazy eye.

I just picked up my copy today. From what I've seen...I like!

I think that the book is a great resource for any GM, for any setting. Especially the part about making good villains. That could be used for any setting, really.

I think it's also a refreshing departure from the typical WotC book that is filled to the brim with "crunch." Alot of times, I flip through all the new rules, feats, and spells in a WotC book and say: "This is great, but when would I really use this?"

The fluff in the front with techniques of horror and their sample encounters, however, are sweet.

Didn't a lot of those Deformity feats come from Book of Vile Darkness?

No, these are new deformities, to be used in addition to those in the BoVD. Same with the extra corrupt spells.

Ivana_Boritsi wrote: I think it's also a refreshing departure from the typical WotC book that is filled to the brim with "crunch." Alot of times, I flip through all the new rules, feats, and spells in a WotC book and say: "This is great, but when would I really use this?"

WotC has been a lot more fluff oriented the last 8-10 months. Even Magic of Ircanum (which is mostly new rules) tries to have background for every soulmeld...
Ah, I was telling you about buying HoH, but I haven't bought it yet - probably I will try amazon.fr this time.

I picked my copy up today and have just flicked through, so I can't say anything of much substance.

The things that have stood out for me so far are the sample encounter: To Grandmother's House. Grandma and Uncle Chortle seem like really cool NPCs and I'd love to try them out in my campaign. And the Grey Jester just screams IT at me; the picture fits the creature perfectly.

So far I'm happy with my purchase and am pleasantly surprised. I was half expecting high fantasy and comic book horror ala Van Helsing.

Ivana_Boritsi wrote:I think that the book is a great resource for any GM, for any setting. Especially the part about making good villains. That could be used for any setting, really.

While I haven't finished reading this book in its entirety, I would mostly definitely agree with your sentiments, Ivana. This book contains a lot more fluff, which proves to be very useful for any setting that I would want to incorporate these “horror” elements. I'm very pleased with the elements included in the first three chapters (how to add horror to your adventures/campaign), and the later chapters still hold plenty of ideas that can be easily transferred over to my games.

Dion of the Fraternity wrote:Didn't a lot of those Deformity feats come from Book of Vile Darkness?

No, as Tobias correctly mentioned above, these feats are new ones in addition to the deformities included in Book of Vile Darkness (i.e., clawed hands, eyes, face, gaunt, obese). The only repetition was with the prerequisite feat (willing deformity). I, for one, was really happy to see these new feats included in the book. I had been disappointed that there hadn't been more when BoVD was printed.

Algaris wrote:I was half expecting high fantasy and comic book horror ala Van Helsing.

Actually, Algaris, I was somewhat expecting this same thing when I first read the reviews for this book. I have to admit that my expectations have been pleasantly exceeded by the content of the book.

I want to know what the Taint rules are like. Any comments?

(Damn living in Australia where everything takes forever to arrive)

Ryan Naylor wrote:I want to know what the Taint rules are like. Any comments?

(Damn living in Australia where everything takes forever to arrive)

They're an updated version of the ones from Unearthed Arcana, which were an update version of the ones from Oriental Adventures.

A character gains taint as either corruption (physical) or depravity (mental). depending on your main stat (Con for Corruption, Wis for Depravity) you can absorb a certain amount of taint before moving up to the next level of severity (mild, moderate, severe). Moving to Moderate and Severe give the character a bonus feat, gaining a level of taint adds other problems (penalties to checks or even stats) which are all laid out in a nicely explained list. Enough taint can kill the character or drive them insane.

I intend to add it to my Ravenloft game as a result of lingering far too long in powerful areas of evil (the aura of an ancient hag, a rank 3+ sinkhole of evil, long months near an powerful evil artifacts a la guardians). Not quite a replacement for powers checks, but a nice little edition to represent touching evil too closely while not commiting it yourself.

Ryan Naylor wrote:(Damn living in Australia where everything takes forever to arrive)

I'd be willing to bet you receive it before it arrives here in the heartland of the USA. I can count on every new release to be a minimum of two weeks before it works it's way here, even if I pre-order them. Our Canadian & European bretheren seem to have a much better supply connection.

In amazon fr they had a shortage for a while, but still I was able to order it before 2 days and I expect it in around a week. Together with Rammstein's Rosenrot

i just picked up my copy this past weekend. i genuinely liked the book. i feel that the Powers check is a better constructed game mechanic though. what i plan on doing is blending in the aspects of taint into the Powers check as penalties/flaws that PC's and NPC's gain from failing a powers check.

for example:
Path of Corruption - Wereape
1st: +2 to Indimidate/growls when angry
2nd: natural AC +2/treacherous
3rd: 1d6 bite attack/murderous
4th: +8 to Climb skill/afflicted lycanthropy
5th: free class level/must kill once a day or suffer cummulative effects

granted, this could be tweaked a bit, but i use it for illustrative purposes.

in addition, i dont feel that some aspects of taint were fleshed out well. how much taint does someone recieve for a particulat act? i dont think that simply being in a tainted area should warrent a taint savings throw. also, shouldnt the bonus feats recieved for taint be Taint feats as oppossed to any feat that the character already has a prerequisite for?