As characters become more powerful, so must their adversaries. Thus, Villain Codex II: Adversaries for Advanced Heroes is full of new foes for GMs to pit against their PCs.
As in Villain Codex I: Foes for Fledgling Heroes, Villain Codex II: Adversaries for Advanced Heroes presents 12 exciting, memorable NPCs for players, complete with stat blocks across a range of challenge ratings (9-14) to provide GMs with combat challenges their players won’t see coming.
Developed by Swords for Hire Development: Mikko Kallio and Jacob W. Michaels
Written by Authors: Phoebe Harris, Steve Johnson, Mikko Kallio, D.L. Loutzenhiser, Luis Loza, James McTeague, Matt Morris, Rep Pickard, Stephen Stack, Robert Thomson, Christopher Wasko, and Nicholas Wasko
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The second installment of the Villain Codex-series clocks in at 19 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page of introduction, 1 page of SRD, leaving us with 15 pages of content, so let's take a look!
We begin this pdf with Evetta Laxley, a changeling dreamweaver witch, running an inn as a front for her nefarious operations. Solid one. Ferracyr would be a metal elementalist wizard...but he actually is a venerable elf, which is an interesting twist on what you'd expect - and yes, the ancient pioneer has schemes to prolong his life in nasty ways...but may his mind perhaps even warrant it? Interesting angle!
Speaking of interesting: Nagasorko the Unblinking would e a nagaji mesmerist (a natural fit in concepts), his operations include raids on the nearby settlements and operating a diamond mine...and considering implanted suggestions etc., I can envision a complex escape scenario here...nice. Bimsen Malfilex, a tiefling skald raised by traveling musicians when the black-skinned child was expelled from his family, has sworn to bring the cultural elite down and make them see the error of their ways for flaunting him.
Rhikka Verminclaw, the ratfolk preservationist/vivisectionist featured on the cover is not only build-wise one of the most interesting characters in the series so far, her quest for vengeance after the holocaust of her family to "better the city", she actually has very understandable motivations for her grisly handiwork... The halfling unchained summoner Julia "Foxglove" Apalla was once a greengrocer's girl...until she inadvertently smashed a figurine in a wizard's workshop, unleashing a powerful outsider, who promptly slew the wizard and became the eidolon (sparing her due to her apples - nice nod towards Death Note). It, and Ferrycyr's shield guardian, btw., can be found in the book as well. Similarly, an alternate elemental form, a doppelganger simulacrum...pretty amazing supplemental statblocks here.
Professor Laeroth Rydel is an interesting occultist: First, he is a dhampir...secondly, he has unearthed the robes of famous necromancer Shaf-Ka-Sar and now behaves like the necromancer...is he possessed, has he gone off the deep end...or was he always waiting to snap? The GM decides. Gordakash Saltenclaw would be a cleric of Dagon, a dwarf in league with the clawed forces of the deep. Lucretia Tropin, a famous investigator who dresses the part, is amazing, for she, in fact, doubles as a serial killer - seriously cool angle for a battle of wits!
Rayri Shaden is an interesting twist on the shadowdancer - he actually is a fighter/shadowdancer multiclass, complete with heavy armor! Nice twist here! Madison Grand, an old elven psychic of considerable power, has plotted the downfall of the elves that exiled her.
And here is a unique adversary: Hanne Bullard is an oathbound paladin. No, not antipaladin. A paladin.She has instigated martial law to uphold civilization and order - and her measures are a slippery slope, well-intentioned though they may be.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are top-notch, I noticed no glaring glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly two-column b/w-standard and the pdf features a great b/w-artwork for each of the adversaries herein. The pdf comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.
Phoebe Harris, Steve Johnson, Mikko Kallio, D.L. Loutzenhiser, Luis Loza, James McTeague, Matt Morris, Rep Pickard, Stephen Stack, Robert Thomson, Christopher Wasko and Nicholas Wasko, with development by Mikko Kallio and Jacob W. Michaels, have delivered a cool collection of adversaries here. The respective villains certainly are high concept and interesting, with my favorites being the ratfolk alchemist as well as the investigator - but as a whole, each of the villains has something cool going on and build-wise, they are pretty neat as well. In the end, this pdf leaves not much to be desired and thus clocks in at a final verdict of 5 stars.
Disclaimer: I participated in the creation of first Villain codex but have no participation in this one in any form.
The book present 12 villainous NPCs with fully detailed statblocks. They are two CR9, two CR 10, two CR 11, three CR 12, one CR 13 and two CR 14. We have a variety of classes and races, from elves to nagajis and no class was used twice.
All the Npcs comes with a description, detailed combat tactics, goals and plots.
Mechanical wise, I can't not say that there is no mistake but I didn't see one, and even if they exist, I doubt they stop you from using the NPcs just fine
So we have 12 statblocks ready to be used by the DM on the fly, but it is there more about this villains that makes them great? Well, mostly yes. Their goals and plots give concrete ideas about how to use them in a campaign, you can use these ideas to create a whole adventure around them.
Unfortunately, I have a problem with one of the NPCs. There is a paladin in this motley crew and I just feel she fell short. Basically all the other NPCs has villainous plots that if the PC don't do something then bad things happen. But the Paladin just feels like someone the players will be annoyed with, and that is all, she present no threat. There is an advice about how to make her overstep her code and lose her powers, but why a good character (or even a neutral one) would want to do that?.
One huge improvement this book have over villain codex I is the appendix section. Here we have the statblocks for familiars, Eidolons and other things that would have occupied too much space in the main NPC entry. This free space in the NPC entry so the writer can give more detail about the NPc descriptions and plots and overall improve the quality of the villain.
Overall I feel somewhat sad because I like the idea of paladins as villains but the rest of the product seems flawless.
I'm sorry Hanne didn't work for you. We had a LOT of interest in paladin villains, much to our surprise when we first started this project. Obviously they're very tricky to use as villains as paladin are by definition good.
We thought Hanne managed to tread that line between lawful good and villainy well, though it's certainly less likely (though not impossible, we thought) good-aligned characters are going to come into conflict with her. There are, however, a number of campaigns that may not necessarily be good-aligned, and certainly some "murder hobos" out there who could find themselves on the wrong side of Hanne.
