I’m not sure what to think about half-orcs; until very recently, I thought they were “new” in 3rd Edition. It turns out that they’re not. Consequently, I’ve been living a lie.

In general, I’m willing to give the really old stuff a lot of leeway, in no small part because it started a lot of things. I also thing there’s a lot more fun I could have in there, by trying to bridge some of the gap between retro stupid and the sort of “serious” roleplaying I did in college and still occasionally find time to do here.

Of course, not everything that’s old is still good, whether or not it made sense at the time. THAC0 was an improvement over the to-hit tables from 1st Edition, but I’m not shedding any tears over it.

Two examples of things that are old and I don’t like? Bards and gnomes.

Ridiculous

I’ve harbored a dislike for bards because I couldn’t think of a way to make them cool. I never made it through the whole Lord of the Rings (The Hobbit was all I could finish), so I was never exposed to Tom Bombadil, who I’m told is one of the inspirations for the bard class. The bard seemed out of place in Dark Sun, the setting I started with, and for a number of other reasons, they seemed like dead weight. I wasn’t sad that they weren’t in the PHB, and after having read the preview, I think I’ve mostly made my peace with them in 4th Edition.

So that brings us to gnomes. Gnomes suffer from a problem that any of the other races do, too, only worse. It’s this: in a party of mixed races, people tend to play the archetype of their character’s race. Furthermore, everyone else in the party will tend to treat you as an archetype of your race unless you make an effort to prove otherwise.

For instance, your average dwarf is somebody who likes hitting people with axes and drinking ale. This might not even be a concern because hitting things with axes is thoroughly in keeping with the D&D tradition, and a lighthearted game thrives on characters who approach adventuring with dwarfish gusto.

Annoying

Gnomes, though? Their archetype is that they’re annoying. They’re waaaacky! They love puns, jokes, games, and intricate tricks. In my humble opinion, this is terrible. Furthermore, from a visual standpoint, we’ve already got a race of short, skinny people: halflings. In my opinion, Blizzard made a smart move in picking one or the other and sticking with it; even if gnomes are ridiculous, I have to give it to them that they’re semi-original.

Of course I’m not saying you can’t play an interesting gnome. I know at least one person who did. His gnome was evil and I don’t know for sure but I think he might’ve killed people. (Honestly, “evil and kills people” seems like the most straightforward to make a gnome interesting.) The problem you’ll face if you try this is what James Wyatt describes: people will treat your gnome like any other gnome. I suspect halflings have this problem, too. Gnomes just have it worse because they talk to burrowing animals, like to steal things, and make horrible, murder-worthy jokes.

God, now I really want to play an evil, murderous gnome. 

Anyway, I guess the notion of gnomes as a dark, serious race is somewhat absurd— perhaps short, pudgy people are inherently silly. If Wizards absolutely must bring them back, toning down some of the more ridiculous stuff and making them more coherent seems like the way to go. I may not like it, but perhaps this time around, the gnome will be better executed and therefore less aggressively irritating.

I’m done now…

…and I am not sorry!

On the way home with it, I joked that it had must have character creation rules for playing a murderer. (“Step 1: Attributes … Step 7: kill somebody. Step 8: don’t get caught.”) I was intrigued enough to start flipping through it. This is quite a bit more thorough than I expected. 

For starters, it looks like they’re almost a splat in their own right. They’re much like  hunters, in that they have a bunch of specific tactics and merits that set them apart from regular people, mechanically and stylistically. Enumerated herein are also a bunch of archetypes, called “undertakings.” I must say that I appreciate that choice of word.

I’ll confess that I was expecting something more along the lines of the other supplements to annual games, and this surprised me. Good times.

Oh, I’ve also got my hands on Mekhet. More on that later.

Also, look for a post on Monday about, of all things, gnomes.

While I’m at it, I might as well mention that tomorrow I’ll be picking up Mekhet and Slasher.

So far, the new clanbooks have been a real treat, and I suspect that Mekhet won’t be the exception. I’ll admit that in this case I am buying Slashers because I am a horrible completist when it comes to nWoD stuff, despite the fact that I’m still quite strongly on a D&D kick.

In part, I think this is because I find it a lot easier to run D&D. My expectations are generally lower, it’s more lighthearted, and if nothing else, we can roll dice and kill monsters in an entertaining way. Fantasy is also a bit more of an escape for me. I’m not sure if that’s just because of the current geopolitical scene, or if extremely shitty things happening is just not my speed right now.

Hope you all have interesting plans for the weekend! I aim to have something more interesting up tomorrow or the day after, perhaps about the slew of new classes we’ve had coming up. (Dwarves sure have gotten a lot of top tier love lately!)

It’s also aimed squarely at DMs, so you won’t see anything much for players in here; the only real content for players are a rituals and, to a lesser extent, artifacts.

With that out of the way, here’s what I think.

Fluffy & cuddly

I enjoyed reading the chapter about undead physiology, psychology, society, and the like. I think sometimes there’s too much detail on specific topics in the fluff-related chapter; for instance, the discussion of mindless vs. soulless vs. undead with souls is weirdly specific. I can see why they put it in there, as it’s important to have some rough idea of the metaphysics. There’s not much, so it’s not excessive or boring. Still, I feel like most of that stuff’s not likely to come up, and it’s stuff that’s perhaps best left to DMs to determine.

All right, sure; I’ll freely admit I’m being a jerk, and perhaps a hypocrite, as one of the things that bothers me about this hobby is harping on trivialities. A smart DM will run it however he likes, so I’ll move on.

Worth noting is the discussion of sentient undead attitudes towards the living and what motivates them. Although you might not be terribly interested in how you might roleplay sentient undead, I’d argue that it’s still important when devising a plot involving undead of this flavor. The kind of undead that hate the living and seek to destroy them at all costs is one kind. A lich obsessed with exterminating all goblins, an ally who might later turn out to be a foe, is another sort of NPC altogether.

What’s that smell?

What book about the undead would be complete without more undead? Let me first say right off the bat that a lot of these guys are old school. I’m not sure whether they’re new; by this, I mean chiefly that they’ve got that old D&D vibe. Call it the retro stupid, if you like: Deathtritus (animated piles of refuse), Brain in a Jar (you heard me), Crawling Claws (exactly what you’d think), undead oozes, and more. Obviously you don’t have to use this stuff if you think it’s dumb, but there really is something glorious about a Brain in a Jar. I also appreciated a wider variety of go-to undead such as skeletons and zombies.

On top of all that, you’ve got section of the big guys. In here, you can find none other than Strahd von Zarovich and the great Vecna. Vecna’s level 35 and based on a glance, dude can mess you up pretty good. Good times. Interestingly, Strahd is at the high end of paragon tier, which seems appropriate to me. Paragon tier is sort of the sweet spot, so it would make sense for Strahd to be at the end of a mid- to late-paragon tier campaign arc.

Another feature of the book that I appreciate is the DM’s chapter. In particular, the example campaign arcs that progress are quite illuminating, to the point where I wish there were more than three.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention something about undead grafts. I hadn’t heard about these before, and was surprised to see them. They’re almost like templates you apply to NPCs or monsters to give them undead-like characteristics, such as a Mummy’s Eye or Wight’s Claw.

There’s one last section worth talking about, but unfortunately I haven’t read it. It’s a big old section with undead lairs. I’m afraid to read it because I don’t want to spoil these lairs for myself, while at the same time this is exactly the kind of thing that would make for one-shot material, or serve as a nice departure from the main plot on an off night or two. (This is, incidentally, why I’m looking forward to Dungeon Delve, and why I’m at all tempted by Draconomicon.)

Final word

I approve. In particular, I look forward to using a number of the monsters in this book; trolling it for ideas for my next short-term campaign; or for a pick-up game or one shot using one of the pre-fab dungeons in the book.