13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nice Variety With Plenty Of Useful Material, October 28, 2009
This review is from: Dragon Magazine Annual, Volume 1: A 4th Edition D&D Compilation (Hardcover)
Back in the early days of the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game, the "Best of Dragon" collections were among the coolest supplements. Loaded with new character classes, monsters, and treasures, these books delivered great bang for the buck when it came to expanding a campaign.
In that spirit, we have a "Best Of" annual edition in hardcover format, collecting articles for the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons game from the online version of Dragon magazine.
Like those original collections, this one delivers a lot of character options, including two new PC races plus character class options for assassins (one of several versions that exist in the current rules framework), star-pact warlocks (presented in a wonderfully Lovecraftian style!) and gladiators. Even more options are presented for higher-level characters, including a collection of new epic destinies related to planar travel.
Dungeon Masters get some nice goodies here too. In fact the most immediately out-of-the-box useful article was a collection of new kobolds along with ideas for kobold tactics. Wizards of the Coast has done an admirable job of releasing material right from the start to cover all character levels, but at times this has happened at the expense of providing a good range of challenges for low-level parties. Articles like this kobold one are always welcome, as it provides a solid low-level challenge and can easily be worked into encounters for mid-level parties as well.
There are also a couple of nice ready-made long-term villains for a campaign to be found in an article on Yeenoghu, the Demon Prince of Gnolls. Articles on the Ashen Covenant (a cult of Orcus) and the Bloodghost Syndicate (a mafia style gang of urban bugbears) also have the potential to be the basis of long-term campaigns or just quick villains that can be dropped into a setting.
I thought a few of the articles were a bit over-simplistic and spent too much time stating the obvious. The article on intelligent magic items contained a lot of unnecessarily basic advice for the DM (although the example items were quite good), and the article on assassins wasted a page on the age-old argument about whether assassins are evil-aligned by definition, a discussion that served mainly to highlight the weaknesses of D&D's alignment system (and this coming from a DM who normally likes alignment, at least as a tool for use with NPCs).
One other thing I liked about this book was the "Behind the Curtain" series of short sidebars containing notes from the designers on the thought process that went into the articles. Although these kinds of articles from a design perspective are seen online in various forums, they made for an intriguing bit of added flavor in this book, and they are worth at least a look by anyone interested in writing material for D&D.
In spite of the hefty $30 price tag, I recommend this book to any DM looking for options of a 4th Edition campaign. The mix of materials presented here could easily see more use than some of the more specialized hardcovers like the Adventurer's Vault series, which focuses almost entirely on treasure.
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Take it for what it is :), September 16, 2009
This review is from: Dragon Magazine Annual, Volume 1: A 4th Edition D&D Compilation (Hardcover)
I've allways felt like i was missing out just cause i didnt feel like keeping up with Dragon, it allways seemed like a good place to adress odd ball stuff that would never really warrant a whole book of its own, like oddball weapons, obscure races, gladiatorial combat, ect.
And there is a lot of that kinda thing in there in here from bola's, to whips, to some really cool epic destinies (prince of hell being a personal fave), a full write up Shadar kai, the blade rip off dhampyr half vampires, and something i will allways need as a DM, more kobolds. Now granted there are some adventures and enemy organizations that are basically trash to me, as I always try and write my own, but by and large 4th ed has been damn good compared to 3rd on keeping that kinda thing out of my books, and it is a compilation of ramdom stuff.
Is it a stellar must have? No not really. But it does have neat odd ball stuff in there that is pretty well balanced, and sounds like a lot of fun.
And yes it is an attempt to get you to buy another book, thats kinda what writers and publishers do, but it is exactly what it is advertised as being. You buy it you get what you paid for, and perhaps al little more since it is fairly well put together and written, with some damn nice original art work :)
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It's actually worth it., September 22, 2009
This review is from: Dragon Magazine Annual, Volume 1: A 4th Edition D&D Compilation (Hardcover)
Here's the deal. Every year WoTC plucks the most popular articles from their website D&D Insider articles, changes the format and reprints them plus erratas. The stuff in this book is great. Sadier-Kai racial stats, Star Pact Warlock options, Assassin and Gladiator feats. All good stuff. Just understand that this is all in the DDI as well. But for those of us that prefer something printed than digital. This is a good buy.
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