Hey, cool! Now I can have the experience of fighting Kyuss without actually having to go through all that, you know, adventuring. I was really worried that I'd have to, like, buy that old atrocious thing (Dungeon, was it called?) and read that, you know, story that went with it.
Brilliant; pure genius! I never would have thought anyone would pull something like this off. But, I am surprised once again. WotC, I salute you.
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WTF?!?! Brilliant; pure genius! I never would have thought anyone would pull something like this off. But, I am surprised once again. WotC, I salute you.
Heh heh. While I chuckle with glee I have the book and got the impression WotC actually had our Paizo guys write Kyuss' section (?). It's more supplementary material than anything, and actually recommends the Age of Worms in a sidebar. Still, funny post!
-DM Jeff
I dont own this. Is this a book of villians like Examplars of Evil or the Critical Threats articles in Dungeon?
Kyuss is on the cover alright. Is that the "Worm that Walks"?
It WASNT written by the Paizo guys who worked on Age of Worms? WTF?
How similar or different are they? And why is he called Worm that Walks insted of Kyuss?
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It describes and details about, what 5 or 6 Evil Powers in the same kind of format that Lords of Madness does. But while Lords of Madness's problem is that there are too few entries, Elder Evils's problem is that the entries SUCK. The Fiendish Codex from Hell is among my favorite D&D supplement, ever so I can't be too harsh on Robert Schwalb. Maybe he did the same thing that Wolf did with Demonweb, anyway, I do not recommend Elder Evils.
-W. E. Ray
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WARNING: This Thread is about to be temporarily jacked.
On a side note, if anyone's interested, there's a new Thread in the Books section seeking Paizonians interested in selecting and then discussing a work of canonical literature.
Feel free to check it out, and if you're interested feel free to vote for a book.
[/THREADJACK]
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Thread
-W. E. Ray
I own EE, though I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.
Its pretty good. My favorites are Ragnorra, Seretorus, and Atropus. The others are ehh, but those are cool.
ARGH! System ate my post!
I knew I was being too long-winded. Ok, I'll bullet point then:
- Obviously, don't judge a book by it's cover. Don't just say "It has a fight with Kyuss other than Age of worms and it wasn't written by a Paizonian?! WTF?!! It must suck!" :) You can't fit 9 entire 20-level campaigns into a single book. It's not even comparing apples to oranges, it's comparing apples to all-you-can-eat buffets! Different purposes entirely.
- What the book actually *is*, is looking at 9 different Really Big Campaign Ending Bad Guys and how to incorporate them into your campaigns. Only the climatic battles are fully detailed, but there's adventure ideas and "signs" to include for low, medium, and high levels of your campaign. So you can lay this on top of an existing campaign pretty easily.
- It has Zargon from the Lost City. For me, that rocks.
- Wizards.com actually has some thorough excerpts on their site to get a feel for the book yourself to see if it fits your tastes.
- Wish they had credited each section. Since it's more like 9 short books in 1, I imagine the writing was definitely compartmentalized. And there's some great ideas in here!
I dont own this. Is this a book of villians like Examplars of Evil or the Critical Threats articles in Dungeon?
Kyuss is on the cover alright. Is that the "Worm that Walks"?
It WASNT written by the Paizo guys who worked on Age of Worms? WTF?
How similar or different are they? And why is he called Worm that Walks insted of Kyuss?
I'd have to go back and look at the book to do a comparison, but it does mention Age of Worms, and Elder Evil is mainly set up like:
- Here's some background on [blank]
- Here's some signs to include and adventure ideas for low level.
- (same for mid level and high level)
- Here's the big climatic battle with [blank]
So you could obviously just swap out any of the adventure ideas or even the big climatic battle from Elder Evil and Age of Worms.
As for why he's called Worm that Walks? Well, that's just the chapter title (which someone must have thought sounded cooler than "Kyuss"). But he's still clearly called Kyuss in the chapter if I recall.
They should have left Kyuss out. He's unnecassary, since the AoW campagain already provided a ready made 1-20th level adventure, and I thought that the disign of the encounters in EE for him was mediocre. I still like the book, though, even if they vastly understated the CRs. A CR 20 does not have a DC 66 fort save or die effect (atropus). Zargon is ok. I really use that book as a starting point for my own ideas, and I like that they leave it to you to come up with.
They should have left Kyuss out. He's unnecassary, since the AoW campagain already provided a ready made 1-20th level adventure...
That's my objection, too.
Let me say for the record that I wasn't aiming my ire at Schwalb. I didn't recognize the name at first, but checked his credits within the book and saw FC II listed (I first saw this last night at the book store and got to flip through it; the WotC link is just for the picture and so everyone knew what I was talking about). I liked FC II a lot. No, my irritation is directed at WotC. Especially after reading this thread, finding out that there were apparently many other collaborators, that Paizo members worked on it, but that they weren't involved with Kyuss. I know WotC owns the rights on Kyuss. But I can't help feeling that he's Paizo's to do with as they please. If a Paizo writer had handled that section, I wouldn't be upset. But they didn't.
That being the case, what pisses me off is that Kyuss is in the book at all. For me, Zargon is a different issue. Relatively speaking, he's ancient history. I can see statting him up for 3.5e D&D as a nod to all the grognards out there (though there may well be a few that are as angry as I am) and an attempt to reintroduce a classic to the current (err, soon to be outdated) version of the game.
But Kyuss? First, it's lazy. Second, it's redundant. If you want Kyuss, get the magazines! Paizo just released AoW a couple or so years ago. Third, it's insulting to me, personally. WotC decides to nix Dungeon and Dragon magazines, and then has the audacity to immediately spin around and slap Kyuss into a BBoBBEG (Big Book of Big Bad Evil Guys)? Come on.
They should have left Kyuss out. He's unnecassary, since the AoW campagain already provided a ready made 1-20th level adventure...That's my objection, too.
Let me say for the record that I wasn't aiming my ire at Schwalb. I didn't recognize the name at first, but checked his credits within the book and saw FC II listed (I first saw this last night at the book store and got to flip through it; the WotC link is just for the picture and so everyone knew what I was talking about). I liked FC II a lot. No, my irritation is directed at WotC. Especially after reading this thread, finding out that there were apparently many other collaborators, that Paizo members worked on it, but that they weren't involved with Kyuss. I know WotC owns the rights on Kyuss. But I can't help feeling that he's Paizo's to do with as they please. If a Paizo writer had handled that section, I wouldn't be upset. But they didn't.
That being the case, what pisses me off is that Kyuss is in the book at all. For me, Zargon is a different issue. Relatively speaking, he's ancient history. I can see statting him up for 3.5e D&D as a nod to all the grognards out there (though there may well be a few that are as angry as I am) and an attempt to reintroduce a classic to the current (err, soon to be outdated) version of the game.
But Kyuss? First, it's lazy. Second, it's redundant. If you want Kyuss, get the magazines! Paizo just released AoW a couple or so years ago. Third, it's insulting to me, personally. WotC decides to nix Dungeon and Dragon magazines, and then has the audacity to immediately spin around and slap Kyuss into a BBoBBEG (Big Book of Big Bad Evil Guys)? Come on.
Careful. Once I started a thread that was particularly hateful towards WotC, and it got deleted.
There was one Chapter, the one on 'The Hulks of Zoretha', which I particularly enjoyed. There is one change I would like to add, though: In the part where Janwulf says 'that Soelma betrayed him', maybe he realized just what was really going on and refused to carry out the destruction of the world. The ignorant PCs dutifully kill him, congratulate themselves on 'saving everyone from that evil giant What's-His-Name', and the DM smirks behind his DM screen.
Zargon was okay, but he didn't have any real "holy crap thats evil" abilities. Hes a combat powerhouse who can regenerate if killed, like a mini-tarrasque. His abilites didnt live up to his backstory; admittedly he might have grown weak living on the material plane and being fed on human sacrafices, but that would be cooler if he was a collassal+ bloated monstrosity, unable to move but still hugely powerful. (I never encountered Zargon before this book; apoligies to all those whose fond memories I am trampling on.)
Honestly, my favorite parts of zargon, kyuss, and leviathain were the MBBEG (minor big bad evil guys) who were trying to summon them. I like the twist of the PCs allying with a cleric of demogorgon, and also the guy made of worms. If I used psionics, Pandorym would be cool, but...
Careful. Once I started a thread that was particularly hateful towards WotC, and it got deleted.
For obvous reasons I never read the thread you created but I think Saern's fine. He's pretty much just outlined why he feels that he's been dissed.
For the record I don't really agree with him. Kyuss has a long history stretching back to 1st edition. I'm not sure we can so easily decide that he was killed in Dungeon and therefore can never be referenced again.
Well, like many other books I bought, I've not exactly read it cover to cover. However. I did look through it, and I my first impression is quite favorable. But I'm a sucker for high-level stuff. A nice variety of BBEG's, and lots of ideas into incorporating them into world-changing events. Or even just climactic, end-of-campaign events.
I don't like that they didn't have the brass to call him Kyuss.
I feel you. If I had to guess, though, they wanted to create campaign-neutral stuff that anyone could use comfortably, while most people would (rightly) associate Kyuss w/ Greyhawk.
Also, to be fair, WOTC is in a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation w/ all things GH. Leave GH by the wayside, and people resent them for ignoring this venerable campaign setting. Use some GH nods, and people resent "tokenism". I'm not sure they can win at this point. Then again, it's all their fault for letting GH atrophy on the vine all these years. But that's another topic...
Now I don't wanna anger anybody, but you seem to have missed one little thing. Not everyone wants to buy twelve magazines to fight Kyuss. Not everyone bought them to begin with. Not everyone wants their campaigns written for them but would however like some guidelines for inspiration.
Let WotC write about Kuyss (or the worm that walks) as much as they like. They own the name you know. You don't like, you don't buy.
Me? I bought this book and found it not great, not worthless. And it's the last 3.5 book, so I fealt I owed it to myself. There's realy no point dissing a product you haven't even spent money on.
Now I don't wanna anger anybody, but you seem to have missed one little thing.
Neither do I; please don't read the following with hostility.
Not everyone wants to buy twelve magazines to fight Kyuss. Not everyone bought them to begin with. Not everyone wants their campaigns written for them but would however like some guidelines for inspiration.
Then I would advise them to only buy the issue with Dawn of a New Age so they can get Kyuss' stats. It would be cheaper than buying Elder Evils. Pick and choose what magazines you think are best from AoW and use those for inspiration to build a campaign. Elder Evils would have sank or swam just as well as it has without Kyuss; he wasn't a make or break deal.
Let WotC write about Kuyss (or the worm that walks) as much as they like. They own the name you know.
I know; I already said that. And I'm well aware of how far back Kyuss goes. But considering that WotC just killed Dungeon, after all the work Paizo put into it and after it had become such a successful thing, and then they turn around and plop him into this book, it seems disrespectful, on a human and even professional level. If they had given the section to a Paizo member to be written, I would actually be fine with it. But they didn't.
You don't like, you don't buy.
I don't and I didn't.
There's realy no point dissing a product you haven't even spent money on.
So in order to voice a complaint, I first have to buy a book that I don't like or want to use? I can't be vocally upset with the general direction of WotC without continuing to guzzle each and every one of their products?
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Its pretty good. My favorites are Ragnorra, Seretorus, and Atropus. The others are ehh, but those are cool.
Funny... in one of my campaigns, the arch-nemesis is an atropal scion. Drawn from Elder Evils? Hecks no. There was a book released a long long time ago called "Epic Level Handbook". It had a great many cool things.
In fact, I've only had the opportunity to thumb through the book. But in so doing I see Kyuss. (I've already seen Kyuss in that awesome Age of Worms campaign.) I saw the atropal. (Who looked strongly like an atropal from Epic Level Handbook.) And the dead planet. (5th Element?)
Recycled? I don't know.
Impressed? Not.
I haven't even come close to reading the whole thing yet, but I really like the "lesser" worm that walks in the Kyuss section. I plan on running AoW starting sometime this year (after the current campaign ends) and I trying to find a way to work him in.
Maybe the Faceless one will come back as the lesser worm, some point later on.
Greg
Its pretty good. My favorites are Ragnorra, Seretorus, and Atropus. The others are ehh, but those are cool.Funny... in one of my campaigns, the arch-nemesis is an atropal scion. Drawn from Elder Evils? Hecks no. There was a book released a long long time ago called "Epic Level Handbook". It had a great many cool things.
In fact, I've only had the opportunity to thumb through the book. But in so doing I see Kyuss. (I've already seen Kyuss in that awesome Age of Worms campaign.) I saw the atropal. (Who looked strongly like an atropal from Epic Level Handbook.) And the dead planet. (5th Element?)
Recycled? I don't know.
Impressed? Not.
Atropus is not an atropal, but they do suggest a connection between them. I dont know about you, but I ignored the stuff they had about the dead planet; it's so much cooler as a giant, sentient, actual head. The best section in the book is about Ragnorra, who (for those that dont know) is essentally Atropus's counterpart, a being made of corrupt positive energy. Even in those sections that I don't like, there is still some useful information. Its not the best book I have (a little too thin), but I like it.
As regards Kyuss, though, WoTC made a mistake there. They should have put in a page of other elder evils, just a quick list of their names, goals, and some powers, and stuck Kyuss in with a note about how its been done already.
So in order to voice a complaint, I first have to buy a book that I don't like or want to use? I can't be vocally upset with the general direction of WotC without continuing to guzzle each and every one of their products?
I almost answered yes. That would have been so cool.
But instead I answer no. You don't have to buy a book to be vocally upset about it, however, I think you should at least have looked at it instead of claiming the book is worthless just because WotC aren't behaving themselves in an orderly fashion.
Looking back at the first post I see you didn't as much attack the book as you attacekd WotC. Sorry, my mistake.
No hard feelings? (Please don't kill me)
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I know; I already said that. And I'm well aware of how far back Kyuss goes. But considering that WotC just killed Dungeon, after all the work Paizo put into it and after it had become such a successful thing, and then they turn around and plop him into this book, it seems disrespectful, on a human and even professional level. If they had given the section to a Paizo member to be written, I would actually be fine with it. But they didn't.
I don't know about disrespectful; but it just seems to me like a totally wasted opportunity.
WOTC own the character of Kyuss, via their takeover of TSR.
Do they not also own the material in Dungeon? (Hence the reason later issues are not available as Paizo pdfs?)
If they do own that material, why not release it as an AOW hardcover? Even if Paizo own (or part-own) it, I'm sure a deal could be worked out, either to reprint it verbatim, or to add some extra material (especially the Dragon articles, and FR/Eberron conversion notes).
The same could equally be said for Savage Tide. All indications seem to suggest that the Paizo Adventure Paths have been wildly popular, and more successful than their creators could have hoped. The Shackled City hardcover has won awards and sold well, despite being mainly reprinted material. It would seem like an AOW or SavTide hardcover would be a licence to print money, and I wouldn't begrudge a collaboration if it meant profit for Paizo and their writers.
It's not like the 'Dragon mag CD-Rom' mix-up, where they forgot they needed to track down hundreds of old writers to negotiate rights to non-print media methods that didn't exist when the material was first printed. We're talking 24 chapters, from the last 3 years, with all the writers, editors and art department being current names in the industry.
Do they not want my money?
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After reading through Elder evils, I was a tad confused about the Kyuss section myself and how it could be applied to Age of Worms.
From what I understood from the section, it was based on the idea that Kyuss fell and was absorbed by insects in the ground. So, the idea of using the main benefit of Elder evils (the signs) is moot, because Kyuss hasn't yet bonded with centipedes. Thus running Age of Worms with the worms randomly sprouting, though cool, isn't really flavourful (unless you just make them kyuss worms, which doesn't really have the same effect because of the name giving away the point).
We know that Kyuss has been dead awhile, so the other NPC's in it have little to do with Age of Worms. Adding one of them in may be somewhat interesting for the DM, but unless you're going to giggle to yourself for a year and then run the EE Kyuss campaign, the point is moot yet again for the players.
There's probably more, but those two points were what annoyed me the most.
So in order to voice a complaint, I first have to buy a book that I don't like or want to use? I can't be vocally upset with the general direction of WotC without continuing to guzzle each and every one of their products?I almost answered yes. That would have been so cool.
But instead I answer no. You don't have to buy a book to be vocally upset about it, however, I think you should at least have looked at it instead of claiming the book is worthless just because WotC aren't behaving themselves in an orderly fashion.
Looking back at the first post I see you didn't as much attack the book as you attacekd WotC. Sorry, my mistake.
No hard feelings? (Please don't kill me)
No, man, it's cool.
I did look through it at the book store. BBoBBEG aren't my thing at all. The only thing that stirred me in any way about the book was the presence of Kyuss, which I don't like. The rest struck me as "meh."
Do they not want my money?
Apparently not. And they don't want mine either.
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I wanna add that same addendum already added by a few others -- this post is not meant as a flame... Just food for thought.
I know many of us have become quite vehement about WotC recently and it's quite deserved. But some responses to posts are starting to unfairly add inflamatory and bias arguments or statements that are niether intended nor implied.
When I described what I felt Elder Evils' problems are I did not bring with that post any inflamatory arguments against WotC. But they were added by someone's response. And this is happening often.
I ask this, don't add implications or ulterior motives to posts, especially outside of the 4E-Threads section, to posts or Threads that you're responding to.
I really think Elder Evils is garbage. My take on it as a whole is summend up in my op, early in the Thread. My opinion of this supplement is not based on my disgust at WotC and I do not imply that it is.
[/END RANT]
-W. E. Ray
I have a bit of a different take on both Elder Evils and Exemplars of Evil.
First, I'm a bit sad, because they're probably the last of the real 3.5 sourcebooks we'll see. All of the softcover junk coming out now reminds me a bit of the old brown 2E books, just more so - more ways of recycling the same stuff (how many times have we seen this same set of vile feats now?)
However, I'm always gung ho for new material. Sure, I can make stuff up, I do it all the time, but it's nice to be able to just tweak something instead of doing it all from scratch.
This book was great for me because it was like an epic monster manual, something I am very happy to see, since I run an epic campaign. I read EE cover to cover, and my reaction to it was more ho-hum ("That's it? A CR23 creature is the end of the world?").
However, I immediately started thinking "hey, I can put this guy here, and these things fit perfectly into this scenario over here," etc. Probably not likely to use Atropus or Leviathan as-is - but there's other worlds than the prime material plane, and I have a suspicion a few of them will be going down before I'm through.
I had a similar reaction when I first looked at the Call of Cthulhu d20 section on the old ones - they're all way underpowered if you're running an epic campaign.
No, man, it's cool.
I did look through it at the book store. BBoBBEG aren't my thing at all. The only thing that stirred me in any way about the book was the presence of Kyuss, which I don't like. The rest struck me as "meh."
I know Big Bad Evil Guy.
Does BBo mean 'Big Bug-eyed old?
'Big Bruiser {something starting with o}'
Help me, please, I'm acronymically challenged. @.@
Biggest Baddest of the Big Bad Evil Guy/Gal?
Ahem.
WotC decides to nix Dungeon and Dragon magazines, and then has the audacity to immediately spin around and slap Kyuss into a BBoBBEG (Big Book of Big Bad Evil Guys)? Come on.
Personally, I liked EE. It was nice to see the epic level stuff have one last hurrah. Like someone said in an earlier post, if nothing else it serves as an epic monster manual. For those who play high level stuff, the pre-made stat blocks are very useful.
Not all the chapters were great, but on the whole I found most of them pretty cool. It would've been nice to see one or two reach beyond CR25 (this is end of the world, after all) but its not that hard for a DM to fix. Good outlines for introducing these beings to a campaign and the effect they have on an entire world (the signs) and some well thought out NPCs. My personal favorites were Atropus, Ragnorra, and Pandorym. I was disappointed with the Zargon chapter and, like most here, I thought the Kyuss chapter was redundant - been there, done that so why bother?
This is a supplement book for high level play, period. I didn't take offense to it any more than the scores of other supplement books out there, whether I own them or not. If it fills a need in your game, great! If not, don't buy it.