Customer Reviews

Lords of Madness: The Book of Aberrations (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying Supplement)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lords of Madness is the third book in the series which started with Draconomicon, and continued with Libris Mortis (the two previous books are not needed to use this book). The book describes the aberrations, one of the most intriguing, evil and alien type of monster in the D&D multiverse.

The book describes the great races, like mind flayers, beholders and aboleths (each has its own chapter with their ecology, way of life and thinking, special feats, and an example location ready to be thrown into any campaign), as well as some new aberrations (in monster-manual format). The DM has all the info needed to make his aberrations unique. No longer will the players encounter "a beholder" in the dark tunnel, but a beholder that has this and that special feat, this or that subtype, with classes, etc.

Most part of the book is for DMs, but there is also a chapter filled with goodies for players (aberration-hunters). (This also means that most players will not want to buy the book, it is enough to ask the DM to have a look at it before play...)

The book is altogether well written, and contains great ideas to make aberrations more fearful opponents, and also gives the players the opportunity to prepare against the aberration menace.

The lowpoint of the book is the monsters section which contains lot's of monsters previously published in older products, and are just updated to D&D 3.5. This is something anybody can do him/herself. More really new monsters would have been better...

This book gives remarkable and useful information on the few species it covers. If an Illithid- or Beholder-centered campaign might inspire you, or creating an encounter or two with them in mind would flavor your campaign, go for it.
The most disappointing thing about the book is that it does not reproduce information for monsters listed in other books, so to fully use the information it provides would involve having not only the Monster Manual and Expanded Psionics Handbook but also the Fiend Folio as well as setting-specific books. Unless you have a pretty complete library, you're going to find a number of monsters mentioned and dealt with that you don't have the details and stats for.

While I didn't enjoy this book as much as Libris Mortis, the content was excellent and several feats/spells/classes are very useable. The alienist PrC is perhaps the most interesting, if a bit labor intensive to play. Each monster detail chapter (beholders, grell, flayers, tsochar, aboleth, and little slaver guys that I always forget their name) has an adventure headlining the monster from that chapter, and are average or better in my opinion...great for side treks or one-offs. The book really does have everything you could want from a hardcover creature 'Type' supplement.

I give it a 4 because I think some of the art should have been better, and there are typos and grammatical errors that should never make it to print (but we're used to that). Often the new material (feats/spells) are only applicable to aberrations, so great for speciaization, but not always helpful in a campaign. Another problem is that the material is very specific yet vague at the same time. E.g. they'll say that aboleths have knowledge dating back to the dawn of existance, but then don't go into it, saying that no aboleth would share this info. Dieties get the same tease, e.g. this god is great and powerful but little is known about him...

I had read this book more than a year ago (this was before I bought it), and my initial hunger was on the Illithids: Brain-eatting super-intellects from the far future. Their society, their behavious, their mindsets. All of which was pretty much mentally fufilled and sated.

Then, when I had finally read the whole book, I devled deeper still. Information of the Aboleths: Enormous, prehistoric slimy monsters who rule the wet recesses of the Underdark with inscrutable complex minds, mentally-crushing psionic powers, and debilitating slime. Beholders: Gluttonous and borderline insane monsters with an affinity to magic, and inbred xenophobic hatred toward all but the individual Beholder. Mind Flayers, or Illithids: Octopus-faced hivemind beings with cold, calculating minds, and affinities for magic, psionics, and a hunger for intelligent brains to survive. Neogi: Pilfering spiderlike creeps who make their quota through slave labour and trade. The Grell: Intelligent predators from a parallel dimension with great skill in alien alchemy. And the Tsochari (newcomers to the D&D universe): Worm-like body snatchers from another planet with a fanatical intent to spread the word of their giant worm master, Mak-Thuum-Ngatha.

Each Abberation is gone into useful detail for the DM and the player alike. This book also goes into revised monsters from ealier D&D books (like the Beholderkin, the Illithidae and Illithiad, and a revision of the Psurlons), as well as some new, terrifying and maddening beasts (Hound of the Gloom, Half-Farspawn... my fave, Pseudonatural creatures, Shabboath Golems, and the Zeugalak, to name a few). Also some new feats (regular and Aberrant. Aberrant Feats physicall change your character and add some bonuses here and there), and Prestige Classes to fight, or aid the Aberration menace (Abolisher, Keeper of the Cerulean Sign, Fleshwarper, Darkrunner, the Sanctified Mind, and the Topaz Guardian).

For those not afraid to plumb the depths to know things to impress, or simply scare your D&D buddies with some impressive work, DO get this book. I fully recommend it.

Many aberrations in the D&D games if they have not been more or less blatantly taken from Lovecraft and his Cthulu Mythos they were at least inspired by the same. Most of the chapters are devoted to aberrations that have the intelligence and/or drive to make an attempt at world conquerors like Mind Flayers, Aboleth, the Grell, Neogi and a new thing. Next comes a chapter of secondary critters most of which are related to main chapters. A lot of the monsters are revised from 2nd Edition sources, the Illithiad being one of them. In fact when it comes to Mind Flayers a lot of material from this previous book was used. Fans of the old Monstrous Arcana will recognize material presented in a rather condensed form. SpellJammer fans will find interesting tidbits here as well. If you've gone looking for this book you probably already know what kind of information you are looking for. At least some of your questions will be answered in this tome as well as a lot to think upon. Personally I found this book to be an excellant read and treasure trove of a toolbox for Aberrations.

As a DM in an on-going D&D campaign featuring Epic Characters, it can be difficult (to say the least) to challage my group. But this book suceeds by diving into the mysterious creatures that live in the darkest caves of the Underdark. Once you lure your group into the innocuous looking dungeon, slam the door behind them and lead them deeper into the Underdark. Once there, they can be haunted by Aberrations that are the stuff of nightmares. This books goes deep in to the backgrounds of all the favorites, including Illithids, the decendents of the Gith and much more. It will be easy to create a wicked adventure for your group with this book. And it will be fun.

This is an extremely impressive adventures module for the 3.5e of Dungeons and Dragons. It's a thinly disguised version of Cthululu-themed adventures and was obviously a labor of love by those who assembled it. Actually, it's really a setting and a set of rules, plus some mini-adventures.

It's a shame the writers couldn't get permission from Lovecraft's estate or whatever to use his characters, but everything here is basically in the same theme. Lovecraft fans will feel right at home.

I would also like to note that the quality of the illustrations is markedly superior to those in similar modules.

Alas! The whole concept works better as a concept than as actual play. It kinda sucks when you're a player. Basically the way the concept work is that you have a certain baseline of sanity. Various events and sights attack that level of sanity and reduce it, until basically you're insane. The part that blows from the PCs' perspective is that there's no way to "recharge" your sanity.

Note that if you plan on porting this to 4e you're going to have a lot of tedious work to do: the monster stats are completely different.

This book was wonderful, the details they give you on Aboleths, Beholders, Neogi and Mind Flayers is so helpful in adding rich details to these alien creatures from the past, future and other worlds and their strange cities. I really wish they'd had a section on Cloakers, a monster I'd like more information on. There are feats, some pretty decent ones, for helping you make aberations, character who hunt them or even character who serve them. Also, prestige classes for both hunters and aboleth servants. Details on the strange gods of aberation too. I think this was one of the better D&D books I've ever read and think you should pick this up if you are a DM, not a book for players as it has way too many secrets in it. I wish they'd made a few more books like this, Librim Mortis and Draconomicon are both great but they could have made a book on magic beasts, construcs and fey which could have been great too.

This book is totally in the flavor of H.P. Lovecraft books, except that it is for a fantasy genre. It is truly awesome and I love owning it. I prefer to use it only on rare occassions to maximize the true horrors of what the party encounters and to keep it fresh.

Great book! Like the Draconomicon, Libris Mortis and the Fiendish Codexes, this book give you a deeper view of the weird world of aberrations. The most important aberrations have their own chapters, where you can get their phisiology, habitat, sociology and many other aspects to improve your game. The illustrations are great. We have a chapter with new monster and nasty variants of the old ones. The great thing about this book is that the most part of its material is descretive text, so you can use all the concepts in your new 4ed. table!