Customer Reviews

Ravenloft Campaign Setting: Core Rulebook (d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was quite the fan of the old Ravenloft setting. Victorian Horror has always been a favorite genre of mine. When I heard that Sword and Sorcery Press would be reviving the setting for D&D3E under the open gaming liscence I was very excited and S&S came through...

Firstly, here's what's inside:
*Chapter One: The World of Ravenloft
- How to use this Book
- The Gothic mystique (outlining the history of Gothic literature)
- The Realm of Dread (giving an overview of the setting)
- History
- Timeline of Events
- Geography of Mists (contains Cultural Levels for the domains of dread)
- Lexicon (terms used in the game)
*Chapter Two: Player Characters featuring:
- Races
:Humans
:Calibans (twisted humans exposed to foul curses)
:Dwarves
:Elves
:Gnomes
:Half-elves
:Halfings
:Half-vistani (a new race)
- Classes
:All of the Core classes are present, with additional rules for each class

*Chapter Three: The Ways of the World
- Fear, Horror, and Madness rules
*Chapter Four: The Dread Realms
- Covering each Domain, giving information on Cultural level, Landscape, Major Settlements, The Folk, The Law, Trade and Diplomacy, Characters.
*Chapter Five: Horrors of the Night
- Covering the monsters of Ravenloft.
- Vampires, Ghosts, Liches, Lycanthropes, Constructs (including a new template: the Dread Golem), The Ancient Dead, Fiends, Hags, and the Vistani
- Each entry is detailed much as the old Van Richten's Guides did.
*Chapter Six: The Ravenloft Campaign
- Tips and hints on maintaining a gothic horror atmosphere.
- The book ends with a list of reading and viewing materials in the genre.

All in all the book delivers more than enough source material to run a campaign of Gothic Horror in your D&D game and plenty of material to allow for a flawless conversion of your 2nd edition Ravenloft campaign to D&D3E.

My only REAL disappointment is the lack of statistics for the Darklords themselves. Hopfully this information will be forthcoming in another Ravenloft supplement, perhaps one that will address the variety of monsters not given. This small flaw is not enough to deter me from giving this product my highest rating.

Well done Sword and Sorcery and thank you for my Halloween present...

What some devoted RL DM's and longtime fans apparently dislike about this book is in my opinion it's greatest strength. You can give it to your players without fear to spoil their fun in the campaign. There are just two exceptions that I ask my players not to read just yet: The History section and the letter from Azalin - and even those only because we're still playing some of the old adventures.

This is a player's book and a rules book. The DM's "guide", "Secrets of the Dread Realms" will come in December.

The book is nicely written and achieves it's purposes: bring RL to 3e and move the setting forward. There are many new things in there as well: a section on faiths, calibans, new feats and skills, rules for firearms and improvised weapons, the appearance of mistways and many many small things.

Compared to Domains of Dread, RL has evolved into something more of a "true world". It feels much more connected. Not only have all the clusters finally been detailed and mistways charted but politics and relationsships (including currencies and tradegoods) have been developed. "Culture" has been given a lot of thought. While the book is significantly shorter than e.g. the Forgotten Realms CS, and comparatively much space had to be devoted to RL-specific rules, I never got such a clear and distinctive picture of the people (how they look and what is important to them)in any other setting before. All this is stuff for a player (and dm) to make interesting characters and stories - and all the informations about the domains is of a nature that could conceivably be aquired by "gather information".

There are also sections, especially the chapter about monsters that are more geared for the fangs of the DM. But the "monsters" are "templates" (more in the Van Richten's sense than that of the MM) - and thus the player won't learn much more than "Be careful with everything in RL".

The only complaint I have is that it's too short. 300 pages would have been better.

It has been a long wait, but finally Ravenloft hits the shelves once again. The Ravenloft setting has always struggled for its existance, being torn between the fantasy rules of AD&D it used, and the gothic setting it wanted to be. With this latest edition, the setting is now truly stand alone.

The Ravenloft setting is all about horror, with a particular focus on the gothic. It is a nightmarish world full of danger and despair, evil and cruelty. The players' role is to portray a true hero (or anti-hero). Not just one who is physically powerful... The heroes of Ravenloft make sacrifices, face dilemmas, overcome their fear... but ultimately never succeed completely. The evil in Ravenloft is too great to overcome, but it is not invincible. If it wasn't for the many heroes, Ravenloft would be a much more horrible place.

Ravenloft is probably the one DnD campaign setting focused primarily on in-depth roleplaying. Characters should never be flat, villains should never be simple killers, and an encounter should never be a random one. This book gives all the basic guidelines on how to play or lead a Ravenloft campaign. It is useful for players and DMs alike, as this book does not reveal too much information about given domains. Few may find this odd, but the book was intended to be very usable by players, without the need for a DM watching over their shoulders to make sure they don't get to read the parts that are supposed to be secret.

It is recommended for DMs, though, to get a copy of Secrets of the Dread Realms before starting a campaign, as it sheds light on the true nature of the political leaders of many domains. Just make sure your players don't get to read it!

5 stars-- And don't worry if you've never played Ravenloft before. This book contains all you need to know.

To start with the faults in the book itself, this book is missing a decent map (like the one in the Faerun setting) and is not particularly well structured.
Otherwise, I have no experience with 2nd Ed Ravenloft, but I've read the novels and this book certainly captures the mood... not surprising, since it's written by the Kargatane, Ravenloft's lifeline and now, possibly, its saviors. The information is generally clear and useful, and the real meaning of a Gothic campaign is well described. So why only three stars?
It's the price that drives it up. You can make characters with this book, but the DM must have the "Secrets of the Dread Realm" expansion (which should have been bigger and more complete with more darkords, and should have carried most of the DM-only information in this book, like Dread Companions, Power checks, monster stats etc.) and should have "Denizens of Darkness" to run a good campaign, which works out to a lot of money when you add the D&D rulebooks.
All in all, this book is very good in itself, but it holds information it shouldn't (DM-only) and is brought down by its supplements. If "Secrets" had been more complete and this book had had maybe two or three prestige classes, I would have easily given it 5 stars regardless of the lack of a map.

It seems to me a lot of the reviewers for some reason were surprised by the fact that this book is encyclopedic in nature. Was anything else to be expected from a new publisher and new edition? They had to address people who couldn't get their hands on older materials, and they have no ability to produce that older material themselves without incurring the same costs. Better to update it overall I say.

It is probably true that people with previous materials can give this a miss, but I think you are missing out on a great sourcebook that you can hand to your players and let them read a section or two (i.e. you are starting a new campaign with characters all from the Ravenloft world, you can let each player read the section on their home domain).

As to gamers who expect fancy artwork...I'm one of those who actually prefers to see cheesy artwork. I'd rather see a page of text than a page with a picture on it and I'd rather see more money go to the authors than to illustrators.

>>Yes, this book could be perfect. Almost everything you need to run a RAVENLOFT campaing is there. Many things I missed in the 2nd. Ed. are here, like the rules to play with Clerics (religion, gods, domains, etc...), and the answer for: "how can I travel from Barovia (Core Domain) to Bluetspur (an Island of Terror)?". Chapter 5: Horrors of the Night, simple pays the book, in this chapter you'll find lots of information on how to advance creatures like vampires, ghosts, liches, lycanthropes and others, and make them more powerful, and special rules for lycanthropy. The chapter dedicated to the domains is good too. All domains are very well described, with useful information like important cities (and population), percentage of the races in a given domain... Well, the darklords are missing, but there's SECRETS OF THE DREAD REALMS (another book describing them). So, RAVENLOFT 3rd. Ed. is a very good book. The only problem is: "WHERE IN [HECK] IS THE POSTER MAP?!" Can you belive that Arthaus simple didn't include a poster map inside the book? The only thing you have is a terrible two pages map inside the book! And you'll need glasses to read it! Ah! And it's black&white! For the Dark Powers sake, where's the poster map?... The only thing left is to pray for the Dark Powers... Maybe someday Arthaus realize the mistake, and give us a decent poster map (like the Forgotten Realms one! That's a great map!). After all said... I recomend this book! Enjoy!

I got this book awhile back and it is wonderful. I just started played D&D again after awhile and although it's 3.0, it fits 3.5 also.
It's great for newbies who have never played Ravenloft before.

It has been a long wait, but finally Ravenloft hits the shelves once again. The Ravenloft setting has always struggled for its existance, being torn between the fantasy rules of AD&D it used, and the gothic setting it wanted to be. With this latest edition, the setting is now truly stand alone.

The Ravenloft setting is all about horror, with a particular focus on the gothic. It is a nightmarish world full of danger and despair, evil and cruelty. The players' role is to portray a true hero (or anti-hero). Not just one who is physically powerful... The heroes of Ravenloft make sacrifices, face dilemmas, overcome their fear... but ultimately never succeed completely. The evil in Ravenloft is too great to overcome, but it is not invincible. If it wasn't for the many heroes, Ravenloft would be a much more horrible place.

Ravenloft is probably the one DnD campaign setting focused primarily on in-depth roleplaying. Characters should never be flat, villains should never be simple killers, and an encounter should never be a random one. This book gives all the basic guidelines on how to play or lead a Ravenloft campaign. It is useful for players and DMs alike, as this book does not reveal too much information about given domains. Few may find this odd, but the book was intended to be very usable by players, without the need for a DM watching over their shoulders to make sure they don't get to read the parts that are supposed to be secret.

It is recommended for DMs, though, to get a copy of Secrets of the Dread Realms before starting a campaign, as it sheds light on the true nature of the political leaders of many domains. Just make sure your players don't get to read it!

5 stars-- And don't worry if you've never played Ravenloft before. This book contains all you need to know.

>>Yes, this book could be perfect. Almost everything you need to run a RAVENLOFT campaing is there. Many things I missed in the 2nd. Ed. are here, like the rules to play with Clerics (religion, gods, domains, etc...), and the answer for: "how can I travel from Barovia (Core Domain) to Bluetspur (an Island of Terror)?". Chapter 5: Horrors of the Night, simple pays the book, in this chapter you'll find lots of information on how to advance creatures like vampires, ghosts, liches, lycanthropes and others, and make them more powerful, and special rules for lycanthropy. The chapter dedicated to the domains is good too. All domains are very well described, with useful information like important cities (and population), percentage of the races in a given domain... Well, the darklords are missing, but there's SECRETS OF THE DREAD REALMS (another book describing them). So, RAVENLOFT 3rd. Ed. is a very good book...Can you belive that Arthaus simple didn't include a poster map inside the book? The only thing you have is a terrible two pages map inside the book! And you'll need glasses to read it! Ah! And it's black&white! For the Dark Powers sake, where's the poster map? Why not? I say, why didn't Arthaus make a map for us? Is it so difficult? Too much expansive? The only thing left is to pray for the Dark Powers... Maybe someday Arthaus realize the mistake, and give us a decent poster map (like the Forgotten Realms one! That's a great map!). After all said... I recomend this book! Enjoy!

All in all, I believe this was a wonderful book. It succeeded in it's purpose; bringing forth the Realm of Dread for the 3rd Edition generation. As a fan of Ravenloft since the old I6 module for 1st Edition AD&D, I believe this was quite a worthy effort(. . .)