Sandstorm
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Sandstorm
By Bruce Cordell, Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, and JD Wiker
Wizards of the Coast product number 177390000
224 pages, $34.95
Sandstorm is the second in WotC's new series of D&D books focusing on different environments. As you might guess from the name, this time it's an exploration into the world of the desert, or, perhaps more accurate, the wasteland.
The cover follows Frostburn's example by featuring a painting of an adventurer battling one of the creatures featured within; this time it's a desert raider fighting what might be easily mistaken as a giant scorpion, but (as we'll find out in the Monsters chapter) is actually a "chekryan." On the back, we have two "iconic" D&D characters - this time it's Ember the female human monk, looking even more masculine-faced than ever, and Krusk the male half-orc barbarian - rushing to join the battle going on over on the front. Cover artist Ben Thompson does a really nice job on the overall color scheme, and I really like his smoke and fire effects and the details on the pyramids in the background, but Ember's body seems out of proportion and the "cave" that the chekryan's crawling out of really looks fake. I also question the use of the chekryan as the best choice for the "cover monster" - its scorpionlike build certainly gets across the "desert flavor," but its half-upright stance and hemispherical bug-eyes just make it look like a poorly-rendered scorpion. I think just having a regular old Large monstrous scorpion would have done the job a lot better.
As for the interior artwork, this time we have 17 artists providing 67 full-color illustrations, 7 monochrome beginning-of-chapter pieces, and 14 color maps, plus four full-color miniatures tiles in the back. The artwork is for the most part well done, but I was a bit disappointed that not all of the new creatures in the Monsters chapter got their own illustrations. Okay, I can agree with the decision to save the money for illustrations of mundane animals like camels, or of scorpion swarms, but there are two new types of sphinx that would have benefited from an illustration (especially the saurosphinx, which is described as having a "reptilian face" - that could mean anything from an iguana to a gecko to a snake!), and I wouldn't have minded seeing the brine ooze or the giant termites, either. I should also point out that, unlike Frostburn, there are no full-page paintings in Sandstorm. Still, the artwork in this book is above-average, and most of the monster illustrations stayed very close to their written descriptions, which always pleases me. (However, some of the artists took some liberties of their own: I was particularly surprised to see the sand hunters - basically, reptilian-looking pack dogs - each sporting two pairs of ears on their heads! That was never mentioned in the creature's description! Also, whoever did the picture of the atlatl on page 97, they seem to have put the leather wrist-strap on the wrong end.)
Sandstorm is laid out as follows:
The proofreading and editing jobs were pretty well done, with only a few errors making it through: several instances of there being an extra word in a sentence, headers off-kilter in a table, incorrect indentation in the feats table (making it erroneously appear that Sand Dancer is a prerequisite for Sand Spinner, and that the Sand Camouflage's prerequisite is Rattlesnake Strike instead of Sandskimmer), improper alphabetization of metamagic feats (rather sad, as there are only two!), misuse of an apostrophe denoting possessiveness, a closing parenthesis with no corresponding opening parenthesis, a comma at the end of a superscript asterisk, a few misspelled words ("crearures" instead of "creatures," "dessicration" instead of "desiccation"), numerous instances of "desiccation," "desiccated," "desiccating," and similar words spelled with a double "s" and single "c" (I was surprised at the number of times this error popped up throughout the book), one instance of unneeded pluralization ("A crocosphinxes pounces on its opponents..."), nonstandardized punctuation in monster stat blocks (a few had periods at the end of their Skills and Feats entries), a mix-up between crossbow bolts and arrows in a creature's description, an "8" missing from one of the maps, and the worst offender, a creature description that starts off (and I quote) ".0bumps, and it has a thick, heavy tail." I'm really not sure how that last one got through editing! Still, for the most part, everything was at least comprehensible, so while the above errors were irritating, they're not likely to prevent you from easily using the material in the book.
As for the material itself, I have to say I was impressed with Sandstorm much more so than I was with Frostburn. For one thing, there seemed to be much less "filler" material in this book than there was in the first. The supernatural hazards seemed much more plausible (even in a fantasy game) and better thought out, whereas many of the ones in Frostburn struck me as having been slapped together without a whole lot of effort. There are only two-thirds as many new spells in Sandstorm as there are in Frostburn, but these all seem like they were created from scratch around a solid concept rather than "translated to the new environment" from existing spells in the Player's Handbook. I also like the effort they went to expanding an idea to its logical limit; after having created the Touchstone feat, they came up with 16 different locations that you can use this new feat with, each one granting a different set of abilities. I really see that as "going above and beyond the call of duty." I guess my point here is that rather than throwing a whole ton of skeletal ideas into the toolbox, they weren't afraid to cut down on their number so they could beef up the usefulness of those that they did add to the toolbox. (Boy, I'm mixing metaphors terribly here, aren't I? Who keeps meat and bones in a toolbox?)
I noticed a couple of changes in the way they present prestige classes. First of all, they stopped adding the relevant ability after the class skills; I'm not sure if this was a space-saving idea or they just figured that everybody knows which abilities each skill is based on by now. More importantly, they added sections describing how to play each prestige class, what skills and feats you might think about taking as you advance in level, how members of the prestige class fit into the world, and even bardic lore/knowledge check sections on what is commonly known (or mostly unknown) about the prestige class in question. While some might suspect this to be "filler" material, I see it as another example of the "beefing up" of the material to make it more usable.
However, my biggest disappointment with Sandstorm was - anybody willing to take a guess? - the monster stats. Wizards of the Coast said half a year or so ago that they were hiring on some extra help to go over the monster stats in their books with a fine-toothed comb, to weed out the worst of the errors that have been making it to their printed products. Well, I'm not sure just exactly when this extra help is supposed to kick in, but judging from Sandstorm the cavalry hasn't arrived just yet. (Or at least I hope it hasn't; if it has, I'd suggest they might want some new cavalry!) In any case, I recommend making the following changes:
That said, though, there is much to like about Sandstorm. The prestige classes, while fewer in number than those found in Frostburn, are equally well thought out and fill several niches. I especially like the way even the prestige classes are intertwined with the rest of the material in the book; the walker in the waste, for example, culminates in the character becoming a dry lich, one of the new monster templates in the Monsters chapter, and create sand golems, another new monster presented in Sandstorm. Walkers in the waste are also part of the Dusty Conclave, which is present as one of the 16 touchstone sites allowing a PC (with the appropriate feat) to gain extra power once properly attuned to the site. Sand shapers are also pretty cool, crafting all sorts of items out of malleable sand (which nicely ties in with several of the new spells, like sandform - allowing you to turn your body into mobile sand, like the Sandman from Spider-Man comics or the mummy from the recent Brendan Fraser "Mummy" movies - and one of the new special substances, a psychoreactive soil).
Of the two new races, I liked the asherati better than the bhuka, but then the former is a bald, humanlike race that can actually "swim" through the sand and live underneath the dunes, whereas the bhuka are just an offshoot of the goblin race built for desert survival.
Sandstorm finishes up with three short adventures and a series of Random Encounter Tables. I would have preferred a wider spread of levels in the adventures, but the story lines are well-done (I especially like the surprise behind the Basin of Deadly Dust, which I won't spoil for anyone reading this review) and the maps are easy to read. The necropolis of Harrax is a location ripe for many nights of gaming, and even the ubiquitous Mummy's Tomb looks to be good for a short night's adventure. The Random Encounter Tables take up much less space than their counterparts in Frostburn, but then there isn't a whole lot of different "terrain" to cover - it's all pretty much just "the waste." I did like the way they streamlined the material while still allowing for monsters from other books (the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II), for those who have those books and would like the variety offered.
Taken as a whole, despite the large list of monster stat errors I found while reading through Sandstorm, I feel that this is a worthy entry in the new "terrain" series. I give it a "4 (Good)," and look forward to the next book in the series (Stormwrack, focusing on aquatic adventuring).
Of course, I also hope that WotC's "stat block cavalry" is in place by then....
By Bruce Cordell, Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, and JD Wiker
Wizards of the Coast product number 177390000
224 pages, $34.95
Sandstorm is the second in WotC's new series of D&D books focusing on different environments. As you might guess from the name, this time it's an exploration into the world of the desert, or, perhaps more accurate, the wasteland.
The cover follows Frostburn's example by featuring a painting of an adventurer battling one of the creatures featured within; this time it's a desert raider fighting what might be easily mistaken as a giant scorpion, but (as we'll find out in the Monsters chapter) is actually a "chekryan." On the back, we have two "iconic" D&D characters - this time it's Ember the female human monk, looking even more masculine-faced than ever, and Krusk the male half-orc barbarian - rushing to join the battle going on over on the front. Cover artist Ben Thompson does a really nice job on the overall color scheme, and I really like his smoke and fire effects and the details on the pyramids in the background, but Ember's body seems out of proportion and the "cave" that the chekryan's crawling out of really looks fake. I also question the use of the chekryan as the best choice for the "cover monster" - its scorpionlike build certainly gets across the "desert flavor," but its half-upright stance and hemispherical bug-eyes just make it look like a poorly-rendered scorpion. I think just having a regular old Large monstrous scorpion would have done the job a lot better.
As for the interior artwork, this time we have 17 artists providing 67 full-color illustrations, 7 monochrome beginning-of-chapter pieces, and 14 color maps, plus four full-color miniatures tiles in the back. The artwork is for the most part well done, but I was a bit disappointed that not all of the new creatures in the Monsters chapter got their own illustrations. Okay, I can agree with the decision to save the money for illustrations of mundane animals like camels, or of scorpion swarms, but there are two new types of sphinx that would have benefited from an illustration (especially the saurosphinx, which is described as having a "reptilian face" - that could mean anything from an iguana to a gecko to a snake!), and I wouldn't have minded seeing the brine ooze or the giant termites, either. I should also point out that, unlike Frostburn, there are no full-page paintings in Sandstorm. Still, the artwork in this book is above-average, and most of the monster illustrations stayed very close to their written descriptions, which always pleases me. (However, some of the artists took some liberties of their own: I was particularly surprised to see the sand hunters - basically, reptilian-looking pack dogs - each sporting two pairs of ears on their heads! That was never mentioned in the creature's description! Also, whoever did the picture of the atlatl on page 97, they seem to have put the leather wrist-strap on the wrong end.)
Sandstorm is laid out as follows:
- Introduction: One page devoted to a quick explanation of how to use the waste in your game, and a breakdown of the chapters that follow
- The Waste: The formation of a waste, various waste environments (wilderness, dungeon/cavern complexes, extraplanar wastes), natural and supernatural waste hazards, and wilderness/dungeon waste terrain
- Races, Classes, and Feats: Two new PC races (the asherati and the bhuka), the "standard" (Player's Handbook) races and classes you might find living in a waste, and 24 new feats, plus 16 touchstone sites (places of power that you can attune yourself to with the appropriate feat, gaining additional - but temporary - powers for yourself)
- Prestige Classes: 6 new prestige classes (ashworm dragoon, lord of tides, sand shaper, scion of Tem-Et-Nu, scorpion heritor, and walker in the waste)
- Equipment: 17 new weapons, 4 types of armor, 20 pieces of adventuring gear, 3 desert mounts, and 6 desert vehicles
- Magic: Drift magic (tapping the magic of dust and sand, which requires a feat), plus 6 new cleric domains (Nobility, Repose, Rune, Sand, Summer, and Thirst), 68 new spells, 2 new psionic powers, and 4 epic spells, followed by 3 armor and shield special abilities, 3 weapon special abilities, a new magic weapon, 3 rings, a rod, 4 staffs, 32 wondrous items, 3 intelligent items, and a special material
- Monsters: 65 new monsters of the desert wastelands, 4 of them templates
- Adventure Sites: 3 mini-adventures for PCs of levels 5, 7, and 7-8
- Appendix - Encounter Tables: 5 pages of random encounter tables, broken down by Encounter Level
- Miniatures Tiles: Four tiles, each a 5x7 grid, of places you might find in a waste (jagged wasteland, mummy's crypt, oasis, sun temple)
The proofreading and editing jobs were pretty well done, with only a few errors making it through: several instances of there being an extra word in a sentence, headers off-kilter in a table, incorrect indentation in the feats table (making it erroneously appear that Sand Dancer is a prerequisite for Sand Spinner, and that the Sand Camouflage's prerequisite is Rattlesnake Strike instead of Sandskimmer), improper alphabetization of metamagic feats (rather sad, as there are only two!), misuse of an apostrophe denoting possessiveness, a closing parenthesis with no corresponding opening parenthesis, a comma at the end of a superscript asterisk, a few misspelled words ("crearures" instead of "creatures," "dessicration" instead of "desiccation"), numerous instances of "desiccation," "desiccated," "desiccating," and similar words spelled with a double "s" and single "c" (I was surprised at the number of times this error popped up throughout the book), one instance of unneeded pluralization ("A crocosphinxes pounces on its opponents..."), nonstandardized punctuation in monster stat blocks (a few had periods at the end of their Skills and Feats entries), a mix-up between crossbow bolts and arrows in a creature's description, an "8" missing from one of the maps, and the worst offender, a creature description that starts off (and I quote) ".0bumps, and it has a thick, heavy tail." I'm really not sure how that last one got through editing! Still, for the most part, everything was at least comprehensible, so while the above errors were irritating, they're not likely to prevent you from easily using the material in the book.
As for the material itself, I have to say I was impressed with Sandstorm much more so than I was with Frostburn. For one thing, there seemed to be much less "filler" material in this book than there was in the first. The supernatural hazards seemed much more plausible (even in a fantasy game) and better thought out, whereas many of the ones in Frostburn struck me as having been slapped together without a whole lot of effort. There are only two-thirds as many new spells in Sandstorm as there are in Frostburn, but these all seem like they were created from scratch around a solid concept rather than "translated to the new environment" from existing spells in the Player's Handbook. I also like the effort they went to expanding an idea to its logical limit; after having created the Touchstone feat, they came up with 16 different locations that you can use this new feat with, each one granting a different set of abilities. I really see that as "going above and beyond the call of duty." I guess my point here is that rather than throwing a whole ton of skeletal ideas into the toolbox, they weren't afraid to cut down on their number so they could beef up the usefulness of those that they did add to the toolbox. (Boy, I'm mixing metaphors terribly here, aren't I? Who keeps meat and bones in a toolbox?)
I noticed a couple of changes in the way they present prestige classes. First of all, they stopped adding the relevant ability after the class skills; I'm not sure if this was a space-saving idea or they just figured that everybody knows which abilities each skill is based on by now. More importantly, they added sections describing how to play each prestige class, what skills and feats you might think about taking as you advance in level, how members of the prestige class fit into the world, and even bardic lore/knowledge check sections on what is commonly known (or mostly unknown) about the prestige class in question. While some might suspect this to be "filler" material, I see it as another example of the "beefing up" of the material to make it more usable.
However, my biggest disappointment with Sandstorm was - anybody willing to take a guess? - the monster stats. Wizards of the Coast said half a year or so ago that they were hiring on some extra help to go over the monster stats in their books with a fine-toothed comb, to weed out the worst of the errors that have been making it to their printed products. Well, I'm not sure just exactly when this extra help is supposed to kick in, but judging from Sandstorm the cavalry hasn't arrived just yet. (Or at least I hope it hasn't; if it has, I'd suggest they might want some new cavalry!) In any case, I recommend making the following changes:
- p. 76, Niski, Large viper animal companion: Initiative should be +8, not +7 (+4 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative). Fort should be +5, not +4 (+4 as a 5-HD animal, +1 Con). Will should be +2, not +3 (+1 as a 5-HD animal, +1 Wis).
- p. 81, Osrutek the First, male human wizard 6/sand shaper 8: AC should be 11, not 13 (and 19 with mage armor and shield spells active, not 21), as all he's got is a +1 Dex modifier. Special Qualities weren't alphabetized, and since he has 6 levels as a wizard, shouldn't he have a familiar (or explain why he doesn't)?
- p. 89, Anekhet, male goblin rogue 5/scorpion heritor 5: Initiative should be +9, not +8 (+5 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative). Flat-footed AC should be 24, not 19 (he keeps his +5 Dex bonus due to Uncanny Dodge). Fort should be +6, not +4 (+1 as a 5th-level rogue, +4 as a 5th-level scorpion heritor, +1 Con). Ref should be +10, not +12 (+4 as a 5th-level rogue, +1 as a 5th-level scorpion heritor, +5 Dex). Will should be +3, not +4 (+1 as a 5th-level rogue, +1 as a 5th-level scorpion heritor, +1 Wis), although the +7 vs. mind-affecting spells is still correct due to a +4 bonus from his Scorpion's Resolve feat.
- p. 93, Abesukh Habah, female asherati druid 5/walker in the waste 9: Speed should be 30 ft., not 20 ft. (asherati base speed is 30 ft., and she's only wearing studded leather armor). Ditto with her burrow speed. She should cast spells as a 13th-level druid, not a 14th-level druid, as the 1st level of walker in the waste does not grant a level in an existing spellcasting class (so she has 5 levels as a druid, plus 8 more levels as a 9th-level walker in the waste).
- p. 94, Salt Mummy: Grapple attacks should be at +14, not +13 (+6 BAB, +8 Str).
- p. 139, Asherati: Fort save for body lamp dazzling effect should be DC 9, not DC 11 (10 + 1/2HD + Cha mod, or 10 + 0 - 1 = 9). Skills should include Hide and Move Silently, since asheratis gain racial bonuses to those skills. Alignment is listed as "usually neutral," but the information on page 38 (the PC racial information section) says that asheratis are usually chaotic good. Finally, it gives a +2 natural armor bonus in the AC listing, but again, the PC racial information on page 38 says it's only a +1 natural armor bonus. Since all of the asherati NPC stats go with the +1 bonus, I'm guessing that's correct. So, in that case, this entry's AC should be 16, not 17, and flat-footed AC should be 15, not 16.
- p. 140, Ashworm: As a 3-HD magical beast (with good Fort/Ref saves), Fort should be +6, not +4 (+3 as a 3-HD magical beast, +3 Con). Will should be +2, not +4 (+1 as a 3-HD magical beast, +1 Wis). Advancement line has 6-HD ashworms as being both Large and Huge. (as an aside, it's pretty cool that they took the "thunderherder" variant from older editions of the AD&D game and made it into the ashworm.)
- p. 142, Chekryan: 40 ft. does not equal 6 squares! Its speed should either be "40 ft. (8 squares)" or "30 ft. (6 squares)," but I have no way of knowing which is correct. Pick one, I guess. (Large monstrous scorpions move at 50 ft., so 40 ft. for a Large chekryan - who's built very much like a scorpion - isn't unbelievable.)
- p. 147, Desert Devil (Araton): The Full Attack line implies that he should have the Two Weapon Fighting feat (as a bonus feat). If this is true, then all that needs to be changed (beyond giving him the bonus feat) is that the second scimitar's damage should be 1d6+1/18-20 instead of 1d6+2/18-20. (He should only get half of his Strength bonus with his off-hand weapon.) Otherwise, Full Attack should be Scimitar +5 melee (1d6+2/18-20) and scimitar +1 melee (1d6+1/18-20). (Personally, I vote giving him the bonus feat.)
- p. 148, Diprotodon: First of all, this technically shouldn't be listed under "Dinosaur," as it's a prehistoric marsupial. That quibble aside, it has 9 HD, yet its Advancement starts at 12-18 HD. What happened to 10-11 HD?
- p. 149, Dire Hippopotamus: Since its bite is its only attack, it should get to use 1.5 times its Strength bonus. Thus, bite damage should be 2d8+18/19-20, not 2d8+12/19-20. Also, there's no Treasure listed; presumably it's "None." (I was also saddened that there was no illustration of the dire hippo.)
- p. 150, Dire Jackal: Since its bite is its only attack, it should get to use 1.5 times its Strength bonus. Thus, bite damage should be 1d6+7, not 1d6+5. Also, there's no Treasure listed; presumably it's "None."
- pp. 152-153, Sand Dragon: Wyrm advancement should be 34-35 HD, not 35-36 HD. Reflex save for the young adult's breath weapon should be DC 20, not DC 23 (10 + 1/2HD + Con modifier = 10 + 7 + 3 = 20). Reflex saves for a great wyrm's breath weapon should be DC 35, not DC 36 (10 + 18 + 7). An ancient sand dragon's AC (and flat-footed AC) should be 39, not 38 (-2 size, +31 natural).
- pp. 155-157, Dry Lich, Asherati Cleric 5/Walker in the Waste 10: Why mention the "drowning if submerged in water" rule (an asherati racial trait) when the NPC is undead? Surely it doesn't need to breath! Likewise with the rule about the amount of water it must drink daily. (Apparently somebody just got "copy-and-paste" happy and wasn't thinking too hard about the specifics of the NPC involved.) Light crossbow attacks should be at +9 ranged, not +8 (+8 BAB, +1 masterwork bonus). Light crossbow damage should be 1d8+1/19-20, not 1d8/19-20 (they're +1 crossbow bolts). Finally, its possessions include a 250 gp "eye ointment" - what's that all about? There's no 250 gp "eye ointment" that I could see in Sandstorm at all. (There is a "blackeye" alchemical substance that reduces sun glare, but a vial only costs 1 gp.)
- p. 158, Dune Hag: Claw attacks should be at +9 melee, not +10 (+5 BAB, +5 Str, -1 size). Bite attacks should be at +4 melee, not +5 (+5 BAB, +5 Str, -1 size, -5 for a secondary attack).
- p. 159, Dunewinder: Advancement reads "13-18 HD (Huge); 17-36 HD (Gargantuan)" - surely that should be 13-18 and 19-36 or else 13-17 and 18-36. (My guess is the former.) It's unlikely that they're related to the remorhaz (as described), given that remorhazes have legs. Also, the description of the dunewinder says it lacks a "wide maw," yet the illustration shows it with one. (Plus, its bite damage is 2d8+12 and it has Improved Grab based on its bite! For once, it sounds like the illustration is correct and the text is wrong!)
- p. 160, Dustblight: For some reason, the "Full Attack" line is just labeled "Attack" (as is the "Attack" line, making it somewhat confusing and easy to misread in the heat of battle).
- p. 161, Dustform Giant Banded Lizard: Attack should be Bite +16 melee (2d8+11), instead of Claw +16 melee (2d6+11), although the listed slam attack is also an option. (The giant banded lizard's primary attack is a bite, not a claw.) Ditto with the Full Attack line (bite or slams first, then claw). Since the template says not to recalculate saves, Fort/Ref/Will should be +13/+3/+3 (from the original creature's ability scores) or +13/+2/+3 (with the -2 Dex penalty from the original creature's stats), not +10/+4/+5. No Treasure is listed; presumably it's "None." Breath weapon Reflex save should be DC 12, not DC 13 (10 + 5 - 3).
- p. 163, Forlorn Husk: Why are forlorn husks always neutral? Seems like maybe neutral evil would be more appropriate, considering that they're undead creatures that sneak into camps and houses to attack sleeping victims, sucking their body fluids and leaving behind desiccated corpses.
- p. 164, Giant Banded Lizard: No Treasure is listed; presumably it's "None." Also, this is the creature whose description begins "0.bumps, and it has a thick, heavy tail." Strangeness. (Incidentally, I'd be willing to bet the inspiration for this creature is from the old sci-fi B-movie, "The Giant Gila Monster.")
- p. 166, Ironthorn: HD should be 9d8+66, not 9d8+63 (it gets +3 hp from the Toughness feat). Thus, average hit points should be 106, not 103.
- p. 167, Werecrocodile, Human Form: Spear attacks should be at +3 ranged, not +4 (+3 BAB, no Dex modifier).
- p. 167, Werecrocodile, Crocodile Form: Con should be 19, not 17. (A crocodile has Con 17, so it has a +6 Con bonus. When added to the werecrocodile human form's Con 13, it becomes Con 19. This is even spelled out on page 177 of the Monster Manual, where the werecrocodile is being used as a hypothetical example!) Thus, Fort should be +9, not +8.
- p. 167, Werecrocodile, Hybrid Form: The same errors were made here as in the werecrocodile's crocodile form, above.
- p. 171, Marrusault: 20 ft. does not equal 6 squares; its speed should be "20 ft. (4 squares)" - it is, after all, in full plate armor with a base speed of 30 ft.
- pp. 173-174, Marruspawn Abomination: Under Full attack, bite attacks should be at +30 melee, not +34 (+20 BAB, +12 Str, -2 for a secondary attack with the Multiattack feat). Also, why doesn't is speak Marru? You'd think it would know the language of the race that not only created it, but that it is a part of.
- p. 176, Sulfur Mephit: Breath weapon Fortitude save should be DC 13, not DC 12, if it includes a +1 racial bonus like it says it does.
- p. 177, Mirage Mullah, 5th-level Human Fighter: Scimitar damage should be 1d6+4/18-20, not 1d6+2/18-20 (+1 Str, +1 magic weapon bonus, +2 Weapon Specialization).
- p. 178, Lava Ooze: HD should be 8d10+56, not 8d10+84 (it has a +7 Con bonus). Average hit points should be 100, not 128.
- p. 179, Porcupine Cactus: Initiative should be -2, not -5 (a Dex 7 carries a -2 Dex penalty). Flat-footed AC should be 14, not 13 (+1 size, -2 Dex, +5 natural). Also, I'm not entirely convinced that a plant with no Strength score can grapple, but apparently shriekers (from the Monster Manual can, and these guys have the same BAB/Grapple listings as shriekers do.
- pp. 188-189, Threskisphinx: Rake attacks should be at +14 melee, not +11 (+10 BAB, -1 size, +5 Str).
- p. 190, Wasteland Troll: Fort should be +13, not +14 (+6 as an 8-HD giant, +7 Con). Ref should be +2, not +4 (+2 as an 8-HD giant, +0 Dex).
- p. 191, Waste Crawler (Anhydrut): 30 ft. does not equal 10 squares! I'm guessing that should be 30 ft. (6 squares) instead of 50 ft. (10 squares), which is the other possibility. The Feats entries aren't alphabetized. Finally, I'll just point out that it can cast a global warming spell once a century - that's got to be a first!
- p. 198, Soldier Termite: Poison Fortitude save should be DC 12, not DC 14 (10 + 1 + 1).
- p. 215, Mummy Guard, Warrior 1: With 9 HD, he should have 4 feats, not just 3.
That said, though, there is much to like about Sandstorm. The prestige classes, while fewer in number than those found in Frostburn, are equally well thought out and fill several niches. I especially like the way even the prestige classes are intertwined with the rest of the material in the book; the walker in the waste, for example, culminates in the character becoming a dry lich, one of the new monster templates in the Monsters chapter, and create sand golems, another new monster presented in Sandstorm. Walkers in the waste are also part of the Dusty Conclave, which is present as one of the 16 touchstone sites allowing a PC (with the appropriate feat) to gain extra power once properly attuned to the site. Sand shapers are also pretty cool, crafting all sorts of items out of malleable sand (which nicely ties in with several of the new spells, like sandform - allowing you to turn your body into mobile sand, like the Sandman from Spider-Man comics or the mummy from the recent Brendan Fraser "Mummy" movies - and one of the new special substances, a psychoreactive soil).
Of the two new races, I liked the asherati better than the bhuka, but then the former is a bald, humanlike race that can actually "swim" through the sand and live underneath the dunes, whereas the bhuka are just an offshoot of the goblin race built for desert survival.
Sandstorm finishes up with three short adventures and a series of Random Encounter Tables. I would have preferred a wider spread of levels in the adventures, but the story lines are well-done (I especially like the surprise behind the Basin of Deadly Dust, which I won't spoil for anyone reading this review) and the maps are easy to read. The necropolis of Harrax is a location ripe for many nights of gaming, and even the ubiquitous Mummy's Tomb looks to be good for a short night's adventure. The Random Encounter Tables take up much less space than their counterparts in Frostburn, but then there isn't a whole lot of different "terrain" to cover - it's all pretty much just "the waste." I did like the way they streamlined the material while still allowing for monsters from other books (the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II), for those who have those books and would like the variety offered.
Taken as a whole, despite the large list of monster stat errors I found while reading through Sandstorm, I feel that this is a worthy entry in the new "terrain" series. I give it a "4 (Good)," and look forward to the next book in the series (Stormwrack, focusing on aquatic adventuring).
Of course, I also hope that WotC's "stat block cavalry" is in place by then....
John Cooper
Explorer
No, I haven't, although I have done some freelance proofreading/editing jobs for four different d20 companies now, apparently as a result of my reviews. This was a completely unintended side effect, but one I don't mind pursuing on a part-time basis.
John Cooper
Explorer
I'm not sure. (For those of you wondering what we're talking about, the Marruspawn Abomination's Full Attack line gives it claw attacks at +32/+27/+22/+17 melee besides the bite attack that I mentioned in the "unofficial errata" section of my review.) Since the creature has the blood of a deity running through its veins, it's possible that it's using some rule from Deities and Demigods (which I admit to not owning - I never saw the need for it, myself), so I didn't add it to my "errata list," because I wasn't sure if it was in fact a mistake. You're right, though, it's definitely worth mentioning, if only as a "heads up."
Stormrunner
Explorer
The Stealth and Detection distances seem off as well. Sandstorm gives:
Badlands: 4d6 x 10 ft
Barren Waste: 6d6 x 20 ft (6d6x10 in dunes)
Evaporated sea(salt flat/silt sea): 2d12 x 10 ft
Evaporated sea(dry sea): 2d8 x 10 ft
Glass sea(intact): 2d10 x 10 ft
Glass sea(shattered): 2d6 x 10 ft
Petrified forest(rugged): 4d10 x 10 ft
Petrified Forest(forbidding): 2d10 x 10 ft
So, according to the book, you can see much farther in badlands or a petrified forest than you can on a flat, featureless salt flat or glass sea.
Looking in the DMG, we find:
Forest: (sparse) 3d6x10, (medium) 2d8x10, (dense) 2d6x10
So you can see a little farther in a petrified forest than in a living forest, which I suppose is plausible due to the lack of branches and undergrowth.
Marsh: (moor) 6d6x10, (swamp) 2d8x10
Hills: (gentle) 2d10x10, (rugged) 2d6x10
Mountains: 4d10x10
Desert: (rocky or tundra) 6d6x20, (sandy) 6d6x10
This matches the "barren waste" entry, at least.
Plains: 6d6x40
Underwater: (clear) 4d8x10, (murky) 1d8x10
Heat distortion limits your sight distance? but you can see farther underwater than you can on a glass sea, and I'd expect water distortion to be almost as bad.
I'd suggest, for salt flats and glass seas, using the spotting distance for plains, but giving targets a blur/displacement effect to represent heat shimmer: say 20% miss chance at distances over 100 ft, 40% at distances over 500 feet.
Badlands: 4d6 x 10 ft
Barren Waste: 6d6 x 20 ft (6d6x10 in dunes)
Evaporated sea(salt flat/silt sea): 2d12 x 10 ft
Evaporated sea(dry sea): 2d8 x 10 ft
Glass sea(intact): 2d10 x 10 ft
Glass sea(shattered): 2d6 x 10 ft
Petrified forest(rugged): 4d10 x 10 ft
Petrified Forest(forbidding): 2d10 x 10 ft
So, according to the book, you can see much farther in badlands or a petrified forest than you can on a flat, featureless salt flat or glass sea.
Looking in the DMG, we find:
Forest: (sparse) 3d6x10, (medium) 2d8x10, (dense) 2d6x10
So you can see a little farther in a petrified forest than in a living forest, which I suppose is plausible due to the lack of branches and undergrowth.
Marsh: (moor) 6d6x10, (swamp) 2d8x10
Hills: (gentle) 2d10x10, (rugged) 2d6x10
Mountains: 4d10x10
Desert: (rocky or tundra) 6d6x20, (sandy) 6d6x10
This matches the "barren waste" entry, at least.
Plains: 6d6x40
Underwater: (clear) 4d8x10, (murky) 1d8x10
Heat distortion limits your sight distance? but you can see farther underwater than you can on a glass sea, and I'd expect water distortion to be almost as bad.
I'd suggest, for salt flats and glass seas, using the spotting distance for plains, but giving targets a blur/displacement effect to represent heat shimmer: say 20% miss chance at distances over 100 ft, 40% at distances over 500 feet.
John Cooper
Explorer
That could very well be it, Brain.
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Second in the Environmental Series
Sandstorm is the latest environmental survival book from Wizards of the Coast. Written by Bruce R. Cordell, Jennifer Clarke Wilkes and JD Wiker, Sandstorm weighs in at 224 full color pages for $34.95, the same price most black and white hard covers of that size. This is a sourcebook aimed at players and game masters including new rules and monsters for the GM and new races, PrCs, feats, spells and magic items for the players.
Chapter pages are done in yellow while other pages are standard white background with full color borders. Chapter indicators are located on the side of the page. Layout is standard two-column with good margins all around and excellent use of white space. No license is needed so more pages are devoted to the game but there is no index. Thankfully, the table of contents is fairly complete.
Art is good for the most part. We have fan favorite artists like Ed Cox, Wayne England, Ron Spencer, Todd Lockwood, William O’Connor, Michael Phillippi, and Wayne Reynolds among others. This gives the book, especially in full color, a strong look. It was great seeing Todd’s art in the book, and Ron has always been one of my favorite artists. I’ve enjoyed seeing WoTC using Michael Phillippi more, as outside of some old Green Ronin and AEG work, I don’t recall seeing him in too many places. While many opinions flare on the net about Wayne Reynolds, I’ve enjoyed his work in Games Workshop comics and in his other endeavors like Warlords and enjoyed it here. To me, the artists did a good job this time around, but I’d still like to see a few more tweaks like David Griffith who did some on Frostburn, replace Mitch Cotie and their current cartography replaced by Ed from Skeleton Key Games because while Sandstorm’s maps are effective, they’re bland.
Chapter One, The Waste, is aimed at the GM with new rules for various environment conditions that make up the Waste. For those familiar with Greyhawk, they mention the Sea of Dust as one good example of a Wasteland, but for the Forgotten Realms, they use the Plains of Purple Dust instead of good old Anauroch. These new rules include new types of damage, dessication, where the character has to have water before healing, as well as the other rules. Things like dehydration, firing a bow in a sandstorm, new diseases, and the dangers of desert travel like getting lost and mirages. It’s a good chapter and gets the GM set for the dangers of such a setting and automatically has applications for most standard campaign settings and even third party ones like Egyptian Adventurers by Green Ronin.
Most players will flip to chapter two, Races, Classes, and Feats. While it does include some role-playing notes, such as the importance of courtesy in the Waste, as well as methods of transportation and the hows and whys of water, food and settlement, I suspect most players will be more interested in the new game mechanics.
It starts off with the asheratis, a humanoid that lives in the sand. Devoid of body hair and with skin the color of rust, the asherait are natural survivors of the Waste as they require very little water and actually dislike wide bodies of water. They can even swim through the sand they life in and can shed light to illuminate the sand they swim in. In some ways, the whole set up reminded me of the Manga Stone, where the water of the world has been replaced by sand.
Much less interesting to me, the bhukas are a peaceful golbinoid offshoot that isn’t built for the sands like the asheratis are, but manage to survive there anyway through adaptation. Ideas on how standard races survive here, as well as game mechanic changes where necessary, such as badland dwarves losing their stonecunning ability, but gaining waterwise, and losing their Appraise and Craft check bonus, but getting Heat Endurance as a bonus feat, to the Scablands Half-Orcs, who have low-light vision instead of darkvision, but also gain Heat Endurance as a bonus feat.
Standard races are included with adaptation notes. For humans, there are no game changes but numerous notes on different classes such as badland barbarians or desert nomads. Others like dwarves had badland versions with some game mechanic swaps and half-orcs with scabland options with other game swaps.
In terms of class changes, they do offer several switches a character may make. For example, a barbarian can get a bonus feat at 5th level from a select list, but then loses their uncanny dodge ability. For clerics, several lists of deities are provided with name, alignment, domains and favored weapon. These included wasteland gods, as well as Egyptian and Babylonian gods. A nice quick reference but not a in depth analysis by any means.
After going over optional changes for the classes, we get new feats. Most of these are general feats, but there are two new metamagic feats as well. Some of these are similar in game mechanics to previous feats like Priest of the Waste, where you can spontaneously caste certain waste spells or Blazing Berserker, where when you rage, you get a special ability, in this case, the fire subtype while raging.
Something I enjoyed from the Planar Handbook, makes it’s return here, with Touchstone sites. We get name, EL (encounter level), description, initial encounter ideas, subsequent encounters, base ability, for taking a touchstone feat and attuning yourself to this particular location, recharge condition, higher-order ability, and higher-order use. For those who’ve never heard of them, you take a Touchstone feat. Then, the Touchstone sites give you a special ability and a limited number of greater abilities. For example, if you attune yourself to the Pyramid of Amun-Re, while in the presence of the Pyramid of Amun-Re, you can gain temporary hit points equal to your level and if you make a DC 15 concentration check, you can do it when outside the presence of the Pyramid. They last for one hour and this can be done once per day. For those wondering what the great ability it, it’s the hit points lasting for 24 hours, but it can only be done six times.
The thing I like about this section is that there are numerous maps and ideas that work perfect for many desert like areas including maps for City of the Dead, Salt Statuary, Pyramid, Temple and even a Blue Dragon’s Graveyard. I wish there were more details on actually making Touchstone sites for your home campaign.
Chapter Three, Prestige Classes, follows the pattern of more recent books with fewer PrCs with a lot more details. This includes name, quote, background, how to become the PrC, entry requirements, class features, table with class advancement and class skills, how to role-play the PrC, combat advice, advancement, resources, how they function in the world, organizations, reactions, DC listings for knowledge checks, how to use them in the game, including adaptation and encounters. Now the nice thing about the NPCs this time around, is that they don’t repeat every word of their special abilities, instead noting, “See prestige class feature description.” It’s not perfect but it’s better than a word for word repeat of the information we’ve just read in the PrC itself.
We start off with the Ashworm Dragoon, a warrior who masters the Ashworm, a sand based monster. Now normally, this thing has a poisonous stinger, but a paladin who takes this PrC removes that poison and the monster instead gains a mystic bond and is considered the paladin’s special mount and can now be summoned and put away as a normal paladin mount. My personal favorite though, is the Scorption Heritor, a roguish individual who continues to advance in sneak attack ability, medium bab, but exchanges his Ref Save for Fort, and gains poison based abilities, such as immunity to Scorpion Venmon and the ability to envenom his blade with his own saliva.
Chapter Four, Equipment, has already seen some use in my campaign. The players are wandering through the lands of Thar in the Forgotten Realms and I had them meet a specialist who used fingerblades. These exotic weapons inflict an extra d6 when you catch your enemy flat-footed on the first round of combat. Perhaps it’s just Wayne England’s great art here, but I’ve already generated half-orc barbarians wilding the two-handed great falchion and human nomads who’ve mastered the deadly desert throwing knife. This thing inflicts 1d6 points of damage with a critical range of 19-20. The only downside for it is that you take a –2 when using it in melee.
There are new options for armor and clothing, but due to the heat of the land, most of the armor isn’t going to compare to plate mail from the core book in terms of protection, but it can be worn without overheating the user. More important is the great like filter masks and sun lenses, special alchemical items like liquid salt and sunshade lotion.
New mounts and vehicles are also included for those needing a way through the waste like the Sand Skiff and Sand Schooner vehicles to the previously mentioned Ashworm and the standard two-humped camel and it’s cousin, the Dromedary Camel.
Chapter Five, Magic, starts off with spells. Spells are arranged by class, level, and then for arcane users, by school. New domains are included like nobility, repose, rune, sand, summer, and thirst. Each includes a suggested deity, granted power, and spells from 1st to 9th level. Wizards can look forward to using new damage type of spells using desiccation, where the victim has to hydrate themselves before healing damage, while clerics can summon forth walls of magma. Some of the spells are variants of existing ones like Flesh to Salt, a 5th level Druid and Sorcerer/Wizard spell, that inflicts damage to the target and if the target takes more than half of it’s current hit points in damage, it has to make a Fortitude save or become rock salt.
Psionics get two new powers here, Inconstant Location and Psychic Scimitar, and there are even new Epic Spells, Beast of a Thousand Legs, Dire Drought, Global Warming, and Volcano, the majority of the focus is on standard spellcasters.
Another section of interest to players though, is the magic items. We have new armor and shield special abilities, mainly to defy the effects of the waste such as Cool, where the user doesn’t suffer the –4 Fortitude penalty on saves in hot environments to Dessicating weapons, where the victim suffers an extra 1d6 points of damage. I was a little disappointed in that specific weapons. With so many new types of weapons, to have a unique lash when opportunity to creat new legends based on vorpal great scimitars is silly!
Other magic items include a few new staffs, and rings, followed by numerous wondrous items like a Bottle of Endless Sand and new Figurines of Wondrous Power. One of my favorite sections though, is the new Intelligent Item, the Dance Masks of the Great Mother with several examples given.
While John Cooper has noted the mistakes in Chapter Six, Monsters, here I found myself using this section quite a bit when Dming my FR game. I like the look of several of the beasts here. Before I owned the book, I snagged my friends to throw such terrors as a Crocosphinx (to which I heard the dreaded, “Oh no, it is the feared Crostimpy) to the mighty Wasteland Trolls. Others I’ve got earmarked to use include the Sand Golem, crafted by a Walker in the Waste, to the more mundane, but still dangerous, dire jackal, puma and vulture.
One group of monsters the Marruspawn, have the potential to be the enemy for an entire campaign. These monsters were crafted during the “Flesh Wars” where the marru used “spawncraft” to create living weapons and this gives us several related monsters, the stealthy marrulurk, the powerful marrusault, the ‘standard’ or commanding, marrutact, and the extremely dangerous, campaign ending abomination, a creature whose origins are supposed to be mixed with divine blood, creating a CR 19 beast who lives only to kill.
For those like me unimpressed with the new races introduced, the half-janni template allows the GM or player to take a new option but at a level adjustment of +3. For that you get bonuses across the board from Str, Dex, Int, and Wis, each at +2, to improved initiative, to improved armor class, spell like abilities, and even some special qualities. Normally I’m not too fond of anything over +2 for level adjustment, but I can see this easily being worth the exchange.
Now if only they had gotten the stats for that section right, it would’ve really rocked. My hats off again to John and his errata finding work.
The last chapter, Adventure Sites, gives the GM something to use right away so that he can get the most out of this book. Now for me, with Green Ronin’s Egyptian Adventurers, and the various locals in different official campaign settings like the Sea of Dust, I don’t need it. Others however, will enjoy the Basin of Deadly Dust for 5th level characters or Harrax, the Dead Throne, designed for 7th-8th level characters or the Mummy’s Tome, for 7th level characters.
The appendix has several encounter tables, a little over four pages worth. WoTC listens again to fans who thought that Frostburn had too many. One nice thing left in the book though, are the cardboard sheets, perfect for the D&D miniature game or for specific locations with important incounters. We have a Sun Temple, Oasis, Mummy’s Crypt and Jagged Wasteland. They’re a little less than half a page, and come two to a sheet so it’s not going to replace your battlemat, but will save some effort.
In several areas, I think it’s a step up from Frostburn. The greater details in the PrCs, the Touchstone sites giving the GM numerous plug and play options, including several more fleshed out locations at the back of the book, the numerous spells and new weapons as well as inspiring monsters, insure that this book has already gotten good use in my campaign. The editing could use another round and the races didn’t do anything for me, but with the wide supply of other races, I can live without ‘em.
If you’re looking for something to flesh out the wasteland areas of your campaign or looking for new enemies for your Egyptian themed game, Sandstorm fits the bill.
Sandstorm is the latest environmental survival book from Wizards of the Coast. Written by Bruce R. Cordell, Jennifer Clarke Wilkes and JD Wiker, Sandstorm weighs in at 224 full color pages for $34.95, the same price most black and white hard covers of that size. This is a sourcebook aimed at players and game masters including new rules and monsters for the GM and new races, PrCs, feats, spells and magic items for the players.
Chapter pages are done in yellow while other pages are standard white background with full color borders. Chapter indicators are located on the side of the page. Layout is standard two-column with good margins all around and excellent use of white space. No license is needed so more pages are devoted to the game but there is no index. Thankfully, the table of contents is fairly complete.
Art is good for the most part. We have fan favorite artists like Ed Cox, Wayne England, Ron Spencer, Todd Lockwood, William O’Connor, Michael Phillippi, and Wayne Reynolds among others. This gives the book, especially in full color, a strong look. It was great seeing Todd’s art in the book, and Ron has always been one of my favorite artists. I’ve enjoyed seeing WoTC using Michael Phillippi more, as outside of some old Green Ronin and AEG work, I don’t recall seeing him in too many places. While many opinions flare on the net about Wayne Reynolds, I’ve enjoyed his work in Games Workshop comics and in his other endeavors like Warlords and enjoyed it here. To me, the artists did a good job this time around, but I’d still like to see a few more tweaks like David Griffith who did some on Frostburn, replace Mitch Cotie and their current cartography replaced by Ed from Skeleton Key Games because while Sandstorm’s maps are effective, they’re bland.
Chapter One, The Waste, is aimed at the GM with new rules for various environment conditions that make up the Waste. For those familiar with Greyhawk, they mention the Sea of Dust as one good example of a Wasteland, but for the Forgotten Realms, they use the Plains of Purple Dust instead of good old Anauroch. These new rules include new types of damage, dessication, where the character has to have water before healing, as well as the other rules. Things like dehydration, firing a bow in a sandstorm, new diseases, and the dangers of desert travel like getting lost and mirages. It’s a good chapter and gets the GM set for the dangers of such a setting and automatically has applications for most standard campaign settings and even third party ones like Egyptian Adventurers by Green Ronin.
Most players will flip to chapter two, Races, Classes, and Feats. While it does include some role-playing notes, such as the importance of courtesy in the Waste, as well as methods of transportation and the hows and whys of water, food and settlement, I suspect most players will be more interested in the new game mechanics.
It starts off with the asheratis, a humanoid that lives in the sand. Devoid of body hair and with skin the color of rust, the asherait are natural survivors of the Waste as they require very little water and actually dislike wide bodies of water. They can even swim through the sand they life in and can shed light to illuminate the sand they swim in. In some ways, the whole set up reminded me of the Manga Stone, where the water of the world has been replaced by sand.
Much less interesting to me, the bhukas are a peaceful golbinoid offshoot that isn’t built for the sands like the asheratis are, but manage to survive there anyway through adaptation. Ideas on how standard races survive here, as well as game mechanic changes where necessary, such as badland dwarves losing their stonecunning ability, but gaining waterwise, and losing their Appraise and Craft check bonus, but getting Heat Endurance as a bonus feat, to the Scablands Half-Orcs, who have low-light vision instead of darkvision, but also gain Heat Endurance as a bonus feat.
Standard races are included with adaptation notes. For humans, there are no game changes but numerous notes on different classes such as badland barbarians or desert nomads. Others like dwarves had badland versions with some game mechanic swaps and half-orcs with scabland options with other game swaps.
In terms of class changes, they do offer several switches a character may make. For example, a barbarian can get a bonus feat at 5th level from a select list, but then loses their uncanny dodge ability. For clerics, several lists of deities are provided with name, alignment, domains and favored weapon. These included wasteland gods, as well as Egyptian and Babylonian gods. A nice quick reference but not a in depth analysis by any means.
After going over optional changes for the classes, we get new feats. Most of these are general feats, but there are two new metamagic feats as well. Some of these are similar in game mechanics to previous feats like Priest of the Waste, where you can spontaneously caste certain waste spells or Blazing Berserker, where when you rage, you get a special ability, in this case, the fire subtype while raging.
Something I enjoyed from the Planar Handbook, makes it’s return here, with Touchstone sites. We get name, EL (encounter level), description, initial encounter ideas, subsequent encounters, base ability, for taking a touchstone feat and attuning yourself to this particular location, recharge condition, higher-order ability, and higher-order use. For those who’ve never heard of them, you take a Touchstone feat. Then, the Touchstone sites give you a special ability and a limited number of greater abilities. For example, if you attune yourself to the Pyramid of Amun-Re, while in the presence of the Pyramid of Amun-Re, you can gain temporary hit points equal to your level and if you make a DC 15 concentration check, you can do it when outside the presence of the Pyramid. They last for one hour and this can be done once per day. For those wondering what the great ability it, it’s the hit points lasting for 24 hours, but it can only be done six times.
The thing I like about this section is that there are numerous maps and ideas that work perfect for many desert like areas including maps for City of the Dead, Salt Statuary, Pyramid, Temple and even a Blue Dragon’s Graveyard. I wish there were more details on actually making Touchstone sites for your home campaign.
Chapter Three, Prestige Classes, follows the pattern of more recent books with fewer PrCs with a lot more details. This includes name, quote, background, how to become the PrC, entry requirements, class features, table with class advancement and class skills, how to role-play the PrC, combat advice, advancement, resources, how they function in the world, organizations, reactions, DC listings for knowledge checks, how to use them in the game, including adaptation and encounters. Now the nice thing about the NPCs this time around, is that they don’t repeat every word of their special abilities, instead noting, “See prestige class feature description.” It’s not perfect but it’s better than a word for word repeat of the information we’ve just read in the PrC itself.
We start off with the Ashworm Dragoon, a warrior who masters the Ashworm, a sand based monster. Now normally, this thing has a poisonous stinger, but a paladin who takes this PrC removes that poison and the monster instead gains a mystic bond and is considered the paladin’s special mount and can now be summoned and put away as a normal paladin mount. My personal favorite though, is the Scorption Heritor, a roguish individual who continues to advance in sneak attack ability, medium bab, but exchanges his Ref Save for Fort, and gains poison based abilities, such as immunity to Scorpion Venmon and the ability to envenom his blade with his own saliva.
Chapter Four, Equipment, has already seen some use in my campaign. The players are wandering through the lands of Thar in the Forgotten Realms and I had them meet a specialist who used fingerblades. These exotic weapons inflict an extra d6 when you catch your enemy flat-footed on the first round of combat. Perhaps it’s just Wayne England’s great art here, but I’ve already generated half-orc barbarians wilding the two-handed great falchion and human nomads who’ve mastered the deadly desert throwing knife. This thing inflicts 1d6 points of damage with a critical range of 19-20. The only downside for it is that you take a –2 when using it in melee.
There are new options for armor and clothing, but due to the heat of the land, most of the armor isn’t going to compare to plate mail from the core book in terms of protection, but it can be worn without overheating the user. More important is the great like filter masks and sun lenses, special alchemical items like liquid salt and sunshade lotion.
New mounts and vehicles are also included for those needing a way through the waste like the Sand Skiff and Sand Schooner vehicles to the previously mentioned Ashworm and the standard two-humped camel and it’s cousin, the Dromedary Camel.
Chapter Five, Magic, starts off with spells. Spells are arranged by class, level, and then for arcane users, by school. New domains are included like nobility, repose, rune, sand, summer, and thirst. Each includes a suggested deity, granted power, and spells from 1st to 9th level. Wizards can look forward to using new damage type of spells using desiccation, where the victim has to hydrate themselves before healing damage, while clerics can summon forth walls of magma. Some of the spells are variants of existing ones like Flesh to Salt, a 5th level Druid and Sorcerer/Wizard spell, that inflicts damage to the target and if the target takes more than half of it’s current hit points in damage, it has to make a Fortitude save or become rock salt.
Psionics get two new powers here, Inconstant Location and Psychic Scimitar, and there are even new Epic Spells, Beast of a Thousand Legs, Dire Drought, Global Warming, and Volcano, the majority of the focus is on standard spellcasters.
Another section of interest to players though, is the magic items. We have new armor and shield special abilities, mainly to defy the effects of the waste such as Cool, where the user doesn’t suffer the –4 Fortitude penalty on saves in hot environments to Dessicating weapons, where the victim suffers an extra 1d6 points of damage. I was a little disappointed in that specific weapons. With so many new types of weapons, to have a unique lash when opportunity to creat new legends based on vorpal great scimitars is silly!
Other magic items include a few new staffs, and rings, followed by numerous wondrous items like a Bottle of Endless Sand and new Figurines of Wondrous Power. One of my favorite sections though, is the new Intelligent Item, the Dance Masks of the Great Mother with several examples given.
While John Cooper has noted the mistakes in Chapter Six, Monsters, here I found myself using this section quite a bit when Dming my FR game. I like the look of several of the beasts here. Before I owned the book, I snagged my friends to throw such terrors as a Crocosphinx (to which I heard the dreaded, “Oh no, it is the feared Crostimpy) to the mighty Wasteland Trolls. Others I’ve got earmarked to use include the Sand Golem, crafted by a Walker in the Waste, to the more mundane, but still dangerous, dire jackal, puma and vulture.
One group of monsters the Marruspawn, have the potential to be the enemy for an entire campaign. These monsters were crafted during the “Flesh Wars” where the marru used “spawncraft” to create living weapons and this gives us several related monsters, the stealthy marrulurk, the powerful marrusault, the ‘standard’ or commanding, marrutact, and the extremely dangerous, campaign ending abomination, a creature whose origins are supposed to be mixed with divine blood, creating a CR 19 beast who lives only to kill.
For those like me unimpressed with the new races introduced, the half-janni template allows the GM or player to take a new option but at a level adjustment of +3. For that you get bonuses across the board from Str, Dex, Int, and Wis, each at +2, to improved initiative, to improved armor class, spell like abilities, and even some special qualities. Normally I’m not too fond of anything over +2 for level adjustment, but I can see this easily being worth the exchange.
Now if only they had gotten the stats for that section right, it would’ve really rocked. My hats off again to John and his errata finding work.
The last chapter, Adventure Sites, gives the GM something to use right away so that he can get the most out of this book. Now for me, with Green Ronin’s Egyptian Adventurers, and the various locals in different official campaign settings like the Sea of Dust, I don’t need it. Others however, will enjoy the Basin of Deadly Dust for 5th level characters or Harrax, the Dead Throne, designed for 7th-8th level characters or the Mummy’s Tome, for 7th level characters.
The appendix has several encounter tables, a little over four pages worth. WoTC listens again to fans who thought that Frostburn had too many. One nice thing left in the book though, are the cardboard sheets, perfect for the D&D miniature game or for specific locations with important incounters. We have a Sun Temple, Oasis, Mummy’s Crypt and Jagged Wasteland. They’re a little less than half a page, and come two to a sheet so it’s not going to replace your battlemat, but will save some effort.
In several areas, I think it’s a step up from Frostburn. The greater details in the PrCs, the Touchstone sites giving the GM numerous plug and play options, including several more fleshed out locations at the back of the book, the numerous spells and new weapons as well as inspiring monsters, insure that this book has already gotten good use in my campaign. The editing could use another round and the races didn’t do anything for me, but with the wide supply of other races, I can live without ‘em.
If you’re looking for something to flesh out the wasteland areas of your campaign or looking for new enemies for your Egyptian themed game, Sandstorm fits the bill.
