Warcraft: D20
Speaking as a person who owns all of the first edition books save for Shadows & Light, I was wary when the second edition of this game was announced. On the one hand, I was elated that the powers-that-be had recognized the serious problems with the first edition and were working to address them, while on the other, the shoddy workmanship of the 1st edition left me skeptical that anything good could ever come of converting WarCraft into a d20 product. Then came the previews and interviews, and my ears perked up at the mention of Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved, my current d20 obsession, and how the designers of Warcraft 2nd Ed. were going to borrow heavily from the ideas presented therein. Hope, as they say, springs eternal.
So, earlier this summer, I marched down to my FLGS during their 4th of July sale, and paid $32 U.S. for the heavy tome, at a 20% discount. Admittedly, I'm not good with exchange rates, but if that's anything comparable to 23 pounds, then I'd say it's worth it, if only to be rid of the hideous level adjustment problems of the 1st edition's races.
Is the 2nd edition better than the first? In many ways, yes, but it has it's own problems.
First of all, I really dislike the layout, particularly the choice to make all the headers a yellow color, and the black with yellow text statblocks. Secondly, after the wonderful artwork of the first edition, (many of which were color images that easily could have been included) the presence of so many screenshots from World of WarCraft really irked me. In particular, I dislike the fact that we're given generic shots of WoW characters to represent no less than 3 of the prestige classes. For "Prestigious" characters, they certainly look very much like everyone else walking around in WoW to me...and why is the Berserker's art quite clearly an Orc Rogue?
Secondly, the races are still too powerful, it's just that their abilities are spread out over three levels. Granted, you invest 3 levels into the racial classes, so you should get something, but High Elves effectively get 4 caster levels out of 3 racial levels, (when most races in AE that get caster level only get 2 out of 3 progression), and Trollls get Fast Healing of half their Con Mod (when Fast Healing 1 is already an incredible advantage for a PC, and would have sufficed). However, over all, they are much improved and seem balanced with one another. The main issues come up if you try and port them into a normal D&D game, or heaven forbid, an Arcana Unearthed game, where you will clearly see a difference in power.
As for the classes:
Arcanist - a much better execution of the WarCraft style of caster. Choose your path from Mage, Necromancer, or Warlock, and enjoy 20 levels of progression without needing a prestige class. While I'd like to test it out more before endorsing it, it's at least a better option than the D&D wizard or sorceror that simply don't fit WC's flavor.
Barbarian- near as I can tell, this is the 3.5 D&D Barbarian with no changes.
Healer- again, a much better execution of the WarCraft style. Choose from Druid, Priest, or Shaman, and enjoy not having to take a PrC. In particular, the Shaman is much more in-tune with the Orcish magic style than the PrC in 1st edition, which I always felt was a poor match. I still find it hideously ironic that the Healer has such a wide variety of weapons available to them, when those in WoW can only ever use Simple Weapons...ever.
Hunter- a neat class in it's own right, and much better served as a core class than a PrC. Evokes World of WarCraft the most out of any of the classes, I feel.
Paladin- a good solid class, though the ability to boost auras with a hero point seems to be somewhat lame considering the benefits of using a hero point some other way. Detect Undead and Holy Strike seem designed for the sole purpose of putting the Forsaken in their place.
Rogue- astonishingly, *not* the D&D 3.5 rogue. Has several unique abilities, such as Stalk and Disrupt Casting that are uniquely WarCraft in flavor, but which are easy enough to simply add to the options your 3.5 Rogue can pick if you have a lenient GM.
Scout- did not change between editions. Still a solid guerilla-warrior class, though it could use a few less spell-like abilities. (Find the Path? More like "End the Adventure"...)
Tinker- retrofited, upgraded, high-octane insanity. Of all the classes, the Tinker benefited the most from the change in additions, with revised class abilities, and a much more clean and simple explanation of exactly how to design tech devices before making the Craft Roll as normal. Good enough that I stole it for my homebrew...
Warrior- It's the 3.5 Fighter. With a different bonus feat list. Go it.
Prestige Classes:
Archmage of the Kirin Tor: OMG...it's the Archmage from the DMG...absolutely nothing is different, so why did they reprint it?
Assassin- straightforward. Also seems to be mostly reprinted
Beastmaster- congratulations, you have achieved 6th level, say hello to your 2 HD wolf companion who will stop advancing when you run out of levels to take in this class. Other than my gripes about it's animal companions, exactly the same as 1st ed.
Berserker- The good news is, you get 5 abilities that you can choose over 10 levels so as to customize your character. The bad news is, there's only 5 to choose from, and some of them endanger not only your enemies, but your friends too. Your best option is to take what you want, and stop taking levels in this class.
Duelist- Another DMG reprint...when will it stop?
Elven Ranger- seems unchanged from 1st Ed...though I admittedly didn't look too close
Fel Sworn- a cool, flavorful class that transforms you into a demonic creature of the Burning Legion. The bad news? Warlocks can now exert control over you as if you were a demon. Also, the artwork is a Felguard...which doesn't have fangs, wings, or any of the cool aspects of this class, and seems very inappropriate.
Gladiator- no longer gives you spell-like abilities, so say goodbye to mirror image for your Orc Blademaster. However, it is a supremely powerful melee class...perhaps too powerful for it's own good, but that will only bear out through playtesting.
Infiltrator- the requirements to enter the class have been made even more difficult...so difficult in fact, that you *must* be a Rogue , and *must* have a good intelligence from 1st level if you ever hope to get the 8 skill ranks in 2 skills and the 5 ranks in 4 others, all but one of which are non-combat skills. Improvisation, the new 5th level power seems more like a way out for bad players who have no business playing a sly and sneaky super-spy than a class ability.
Mounted Warrior- as far as I can tell, this class remains unchanged from the 1st edition.
Skills: Hide and Move Silently are now combined into "Stealth"...a move I suspect was inspired by AE's making them "Sneak", which has made things much simpler. Now if only Spot and Listen could be lumped together into "Awareness" in both AE and WC, then we'd be getting somewhere.
Feats: many cool feats for yelling at troops to make them fight better, and for tinking...also many reprints from D&D
Spells: all the 1st ed spells, plus a ton of PHB reprints, and a very few new ones that are merely okay...Polar Ray and Electrical Guardians stand out.
Campaign notes: a decent resource for GMs...though again, they reprint the Aristocrat, Commoner, and Expert from the DMG...
Community rules: slightly altered from the Gamma World d20 book, but serviceable...a neat approach to working with cities.
My overall grade for the product? B
If you have the core 3.5 books, then this is a lot of reprinted material that is of no use to you. If however, you are one of those people who is only interested in playing Warcraft and spent hours complaining on messageboards about having to buy the D&D books to play the game, then it should be a boon for you. Either way, the new material is a mixed bag, which synergizes well enough as a stand-alone product, but falls short of compatibility with Core D&D.
Also, as a word of warning, my letter grade reviews of the other 1st ed books:
WarCraft: The Roleplaying Game....C
WarCraft Manual of Monsters...D (there are over 20 pages of errata...a single monster from this book almost wiped out a party of six level 4 PCs in my homebrew, and it was labeled CR One)
WarCraft: Alliance and Horde Compendium...D (Balance did not come up in the design of this book...too much of it is dependent on owning other, non-WC, non-Core D&D products to be useful, it's not worth the price...wait for the new guides for Alliance and Horde in about a year)
WarCraft: Magic and Mayhem... A- ( a good, solid book of Crunch and Flavor)
WarCraft: Lands of Conflict.... A- (a nice, in-depth overview of the Eastern Lands, as told by Bran Bronzebeard, with plenty of direct conversions of WoW content, including stats for VanCleef and annoying beasties like Dark Iron Dwarves and Crocolisks. May require some slight conversions for the 2nd Ed.)
WarCraft: Shadows and Light...? (I don't own this book, but from what I can tell, most of it consists of NPC writeups for Heroes and Demigods, all of which need to be revised due to the changes of the 2nd edition, what with all of the spellcasting classes being different)
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Robert Ranting
Damn you S&S!!!
Thanks looooaaaddds for that review Robert; I'll know exactly what to buy next thanks to that.
