So, I have not been able to play too many games this week, but I
will post later about the games I have gotten to play.
I should start the review by
stating that I have never listened to Critical Role, but I am familiar with their
work. This book is primarily written by Matt Mercer and details the campaign
setting for Critical Role season 2. It provides detailed history, maps, and
descriptions of all the regions and cities found within the continent of
Wildemount. This book is very well written and uses some high-level vocabulary,
which is not surprising, given the author. It only takes listening to Matt
Mercer speak and run a game for about 2 minutes before you realize he is a
highly intelligent dude.
I am going to break this review down into 4 parts, background,
rules, visuals, and overall.
Background :
I took a quick look through the background and history established
in this book and I really like it. The history is kind of standard fare for a
D&D setting in that there was once a great highly magical civilization that
has fallen and now people are just starting to pick up the pieces. Two empires
are about to go to war on the continent and the book offers you plenty of advice
on how to play a wartime campaign and how to adjust the time frame back a year
or so and avoid the war all together.
My favorite part of the background are the details on each city
and region. The book gives you the population, ruler, and racial make up of
each city and region. Additionally, Mercer also provides between 1 to 3
adventure hooks for each region, which I really like. Even if you don’t want to
use the whole campaign, you can grab any region or city from this book and plug
it directly into any high magic campaign you are running with little to no
effort.
Thus, if you are a DM looking to find a world to play in, this
book is great. I would highly recommend playing some D&D in this world. It
has enough details that most your questions will be answered, but it leaves
enough empty space that you can blend in your own events, characters, and
places.
Rules:
In total, this book provides monsters, magic items, spells, new
(and not so new races), sub-races, 2 new wizard sub-class, and 1 new fighter sub-class.
I’ll start with the races. The book has a lot of races in it, but the
majority are re-prints from other books including, Aarakocra, Tabaxi, Genasi,
Goliaths, Bugbears, Goblins, Hobgoblins and more. Now, if you don’t have the
rules for these races, this is awesome. If you already have the rules for these
races, its not great. I don’t own every 5E book, so I didn’t have some of
these, so for me this was great. If you own every book, you likely already had all
of these. There are rules here from a revenant-esque character called Hallow
One, but I am left unclear as to how to apply them. I don’t this it is a sub-class
and seems to just be a template you can place on a character at the start of a
campaign or if a character dies.
The three sub-classes are all really good. So, while there are not
a ton of options, unlike the options found in other books, all three are
playable and could be placed in any setting. The fighter sub-class allows you
to make a copy of your character in strange ways and fight from different
tactical positions. The two wizard sub-classes are both great. One focuses on
time magic, and the other on gravity magic. To go with these wizard sub-classes
the book also includes extra spells which have to do with time and gravity. It
specifies that only these sub-classes may use the spells, but also states the
DM can allow these spells to be used by other wizards and even other classes. I
would be tempted to add these spells to only the wizard list in an effort to
help the class out (let’s face it sorcerer is OP as hell).
There is a nice range of monsters, with a wide range of challenge
ratings. I think any of them could be used in other settings. Until I try them
out in combat, I don’t have too much to say about them, other than the fluff is
neat.
The magic items in this book are great. I am a fan of items that a
have a modifier and cool abilities and most the weapons and armor in here fit
the bill. There are several pages of items, and like the monsters, I think they
could be placed into any campaign.
Visuals
The art in the book is awesome and plentiful. Additionally, it
comes with a tear out map of the entire continent, just like the Eberron book. I
am not a fan of the cartoony style cover, but I like the art. The style of art
in the book varies, but overall, its great stuff.
Overall
If you are a fan of Critical Role this book is an
auto-buy. Also, if you are looking for a new high magic setting to put your
campaign in, this is a great book for you as well. The only person I would not recommend
this book to, is someone who is currently happy with their current campaign
setting, already has all the races in the book, and does not want/need additional
background for their campaign (and if this is the case why are looking to buy a
D&D book anyway?).
