Luckily for me, CMP had a trump up their sleeve in the form of a 4e version of Blackmoor. I bought this book for the fluff ($55 total worth of fluff, when you live in Denmark, although this was sort of balanced out by the fact that buying the dead tree product gets you a free download of the PDF-version) and even though it was expensive, I was not let down. It's just awesome (<3 style="font-style: italic;"> je ne sais quoi feeling that lurks on the edge of your mind, telling you that this is how D&D was intended to be played, at least back in the day.
The crunch is less impressive. The Arcane Warrior has a really poor ability to mark and thus to defend (he causes the marked creature to gain vulnerability vs an energy source). They also missed the memo on A&V-shaped class-design, which leaves us with a lot of classes that might have worked, but it is hard to say, when half of the powers use the wrong stat. In general, there are a few good (read new) ideas within the 6 classes, but overall, they would need a lot (and I do mean a lot) of work to be useful/balanced enough for use along with the core classes.
The most useful crunch in the book is by far the monsters (can't wait to swarm my players Sebilis-style with the frog-men), but even there, you need to be vary and consider balance carefully before using them (fix solo hit points + solo/elite damage output).
Overall this is a product to anyone that wants some cool, oldschool inspiration for his 4e campaign. If you are looking for cool new classes to add, remove at least a couple of stars.
Rating:* * * * *
Buy this PDF now
Buy this book now
Thank you for the review and the rating. Can't say I agree with your opinion about the mechanics, but hey, everyone has their opinion eh? :D
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked the book, enjoy playing!
W. Robert Reed III
Mynex
Code Monkey Publishing Co-Owner
Hello Mr. Reed, mighty nice of you to stop by. I am glad you appreciate the very favorable review. At least that's one happy reader ;)
ReplyDeleteI might have been a tad harsh on Elemental Mark, but overall, my opinions are far from just opinions. I mean, even WotC designers have said that it was bad design to have some classes use two main stats.
Cheers
heh, well, a review is an opinion with a fancy name. *smile*
ReplyDeleteHarsh, I don't mind, as I said everyone has their opinion and they're more than entitled to them. But... (you knew that was coming eh? ;p)
WotC may have released the core rule set that's being used, but that does not mean they have the market cornered on what makes good game design. True, many of them have done it for many years and are very good at it, but to qq an idea just because WotC doesn't?
And keep in mind... Ari Marmell is one of WotC's Designers, and he contributed to our book (and the next one, and hopefully many more)... So... *grin* Nothing is ever written in stone! :)
Rule 0 - Have fun!
Rule 0.1 - Don't let the rules get in the way!
W. Robert Reed III
Mynex
Code Monkey Publishing Co-Owner
Yeah, I was waiting for that one.
ReplyDeleteOf course we shouldn't just take anything for granted because WotC says so, but in this case of game design, there is a lot more to it than just that. But I think that we should just stop here, and agree that we apparently disagree on this part of 4e design.
However, I do feel I need to point one more thing out. Ari Marmell is (just) a freelancer, although one who has gotten a lot of work lately. He is not a WotC designer and never was (Unless you just blew a huge secret there).
I am a huge fan of his 4e work, and I also happen to know that he did not work on the classes in the Blackmoor book - at least according to himself over on ENworld.
Anyway, I hope you guys will produce more stuff, because as the rating indicate, and despite this little discussion, I actually did like your product a lot, and I am looking forward to your next thing, especially if Ari is involved.
Cheers
lol, we can agree to disagree. :D
ReplyDeleteI didn't blow any secrets, I should have phrased is better is all... Ari does a lot of freelance work all over the place, but he's had some pretty steady writing from WotC if you just look at their book credits (yay Ari!)
And yes, Ari did some writing on the upcoming Age of the Wolf book... So there is more coming and more Ari in there. :)
Thanks again for the review, it's always nice to see one, good or bad... Whether or not I can resist commenting.. well, we see I lost that battle this time. *smile*
W. Robert Reed III
Mynex
Code Monkey Publishing Co-Owner
The pdf is still available!
ReplyDeleteI have not read your review yet. I will and probably have a comment. But when I read that you didn't have access to the pdf I had to post that it's still available.
Mr Arneson got the rights to it somehow. If you go to his wikipedia page you'll see a link to his officla page and it's in the archives.
Offical page: http://jovianclouds.com/blackmoor
Archives: http://jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/Archive_OLD/
Link to the page with a hand drawn map (the original I think) and the pdf: http://jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/Archive_OLD/bmc.html
Note also that the google group for the Living campaign MMRPG has released it's chargen guide, which includes a bit of a new class, the inventor, and some other crunch including a new skill, engineering.
ReplyDeleteAwesome, thanks alot Dar!
ReplyDeleteyer welcome
ReplyDeleteI am here at Gen Con thinking I should buy DA's Blackmoor for 4e. Your post has given me something to consider, but my quick glance on the crunch lead me to think it was more balanced than say some of the other products out there.
ReplyDeletePlus the truth is I might buy for one reason alone, the Wokan.
Thanks for your review.