| Undead by AEG Cost: $19.95 Overall score: 4 of 10 Undead is one of those books I bought because it looked interesting. Undead are always intriguing, whether they be insane lichs, charming vampires or rampaging zombie hordes. Sadly this book was rather disappointing. The book contains a lot of flavor text, which is definitely evocative but ultimately I didn�t get a lot out of. Chapter One consists of discussions about why people become undead, the nature of undeath, and those who hunt them. These are not particularly informative, though could be useful for inspiration. The true gems in this section are the sidebars each of with have an interesting site or adventure ideas. Chapter Two deals with the PCs: feats and prestige classes. There are few feats and most look like they need a boost in prerequisites. On the other hand, Sixth Sense is a great feat that allows one to spot the unseen (though not easily). The prestige classes are mixed. Champion of the Undead is a good villain prestige class and Chirurgeon is a great Doctor Frankenstein, . On the other hand Dying is pretty weak (though the concept of a dying hero is interesting) and the Exorcist is relatively boring. A big problem is that few of the classes are interesting and none of the class descriptions tell you what the class does. So it is hard to sort through them. Additionally there is a lack of attention to the rules. Dying have attack bonus increases for 10th level despite being dead (the class ability for that level). The undead classes never seem to use d12 hit dice (which is all undead ever use). Fort saves are missing from the Knights of the Fallen. This is in addition to the poor editing in the book. Chapter Three is the magic and gods chapter. A horde of death gods seems unnecessary but they are here. The spells are better with Animation Field (those who die there get back up), Dance of the Dead (bardic turning), and Mass Animation being the best. The anti undead items are useful but nothing special. The Cloak of Darkness is a good item to keep vampires alive and the Dust of Hardening doubles hardness (and is useful to anyone). The artifacts are built around a lich king and his defeat, and are powerful. Deathcloak is stolen from Spawn, Staff of Legions is the ultimate undead raiser, and the other items are broken beyond the range of artifactdom. Chapter Four deals with roleplaying undead. There is some good information here as well as some more sidebars� worth of idea material. On the other hand if you are not using undead PCs just read the sidebars and skip the section. Chapter Five deals with campaigns focused on the undead. Some might find it useful, especially novice DMs. Chapter Six focuses on the creation and unlife of mummies and liches. I have problems with this section due to my knowledge of how mummies are actually made (little things like mummies don�t actually decompose over the centuries, they actually looked that way when they were first created). Presenting only one (nonstandard) view of how these creatures are created, there is less to this chapter than there might first seem. Overall this is a disappointment. I might use some of the prestige classes and magical items but the rest of the book isn�t of much use. Chapter Two, one of the most useful in the book is tiring to sort through. Perhaps a game focused on undead would get more out of it but it is still not worth the 20 bucks I paid. The book doesn�t offer enough possibilities and most striking of all has no new monsters (its called undead and I�d expect at least a few new ideas). |