Heroes of Shadows is a great, interesting supplement that just oozes with flavor. Especially for all those who play an arcane class and/or wanted to see a class that could join the Assassin in Shadow magic, it's a wonderful purchase. As a heads-up, the book is heavily Essentials-based.
Let's begin with the beginning (A reasonable place to start, yes?). The book first gives an overview of Shadow, what it is, how to become a Shadow-user, etc. It also shoves a lot of Evard in your face. This can be a good thing, depending on your point of view, but I found that it became annoying to hear about Evard's Legendry of Phantoms and Ghosts all the time. With very few "excerpts" from other "books", it started to seem that the whole book should be written by Evard. This is a minor quip, however. In short, don't bother to read the beginning unless you REALLY want to.
Onto classes. The class section starts out with a bang by introducing the Executioner (It's pretty much the same as the release in Dragon). The class is largely basic-attacking, but this doesn't detract from it being possibly the most flavorful one in the book. The unique weapon proficiency, the choice of a guild (thus choosing a few guild at-will powers), Assassin's Strike, and poisons replacing daily powers make this a thoroughly unique class. It becomes even more interesting as it advances in level, with Death Attacks (The ability to instantly kill an enemy if it's at low HP), appropriately executioner-y utility powers (Most notably a utility power that essentially gives an assassin a jump speed equal to it's normal speed), and more poisons. It looks like a great class right out of the box, and has the potential to become a "super-striker" with good optimization. The only problem I can see occuring for the executioner is playing in a dungeon crawl. The class loses much of its special functions when placed in the middle of a dungeon. For example, many of the assassin poisons become much more useful when applied to food or stored in a container. There aren't many chances to pour a packet of dragon bile onto a villain's weapon when hacking away at hordes of minions. It's also worth noting that a utility power for the executioner is almost totally worthless in a dungeon experience. Thus, if you expect a dungeon-filled campaign, go with a rogue or the like. If you plan on city intrigue, murder, and covert operations, you can't beat the executioner.
Next up, we have the Blackguard. No question, it's the most resilient striker in the game, with plate and heavy shield proficiency, high HP, and a seemingly bottomless font of temporary HP-granting powers. Similar to the cavalier, a vice (Unlike the cavalier's virtue. Ha ha, Wizards) decides much of your power choices. The powers themselves are nothing that special, but they are effective. Just looking at the class, it looks like it can be a reasonably effective defender stand-in. It won't fill in the role entirely, but it is certainly capable of going toe-to-toe with monsters. I wouldn't want to play a Blackguard much, but it fills it's role and looks effective without any optimization. It's not much of a knock-my-socks-off class, but it works.
The Vampire is next up to bat. It's far and away the oddest class I've ever seen. This exclusive class seems much more like a monster template due to it's distinct lack of choice. It's lousy number of healing surges is made up with built-in regeneration, making it surprisingly resilient. This aforementioned regeneration reduces the need for healing surges, changing them into a sort of currency. The Vampire can use it's healing surges to "purchase" an extra punch for their attacks. Continuing with attacks, it's powers are also odd in a very cool way. harming, polymorphing, etc. are all in the vampire's repetoire. What jumps out at me most, however is the vampire's radiant weakness, made more deadlly by a feature that makes the vampire take damage when exposed to direct sunlight. The final and most flavorful piece of the bizarre class is the ability to drink blood. With a willing ally, it can transfer said ally's healing surges to itself. All in all, it's a great, flavorful class with the potential to have good toughness and dish out serious damage, but it's choices are few, so it doesn't seem like a class to play over and over again.
Finally, we have the Binder Warlock. It's... Okay. Sure, it can do some damage and has some nice area powers, not to mention a summoning power, but it doesn't really stand out. It's quite flavorful in terms of story, but the class just fell flat. Warlock's Curse is nowhere to be seen, which makes the class that much less warlock-y. It's boon is only kind of effective. The normal warlock can take some of the Binder's powers, making it that much harder to distinguish if a warlock is a striker or a controller. This class was a ho-hum bit.
Moving on. Now we move to additions to older classes. Starting off, we get a new hexblade, which is just as awesome as the rest. However, it's pact weapon gave me pause. A HexBlade uses the Scourge of Exquisite Agony. Weapons mismatch, much? In fairness, most blades were taken by earlier types of Hexblades, but I think Wizards could have done better on that note. Some new warlock powers are given, and they are all very effective and flavorful, especially the level 6 utility Mirror Darkly.We then come to death-themed Warpriest powers. Not much to say there, as I was never a fan of Warpriests. Last, but certainly not least, we get the necromancers and nethermancers. Both are great additions to the mage. The necromancer especially has flavorful, summoning-focused powers that would be a great addition to any party. Finger of Death especially stands out at me. It has the potential to be ridiculously destructive, a nice addition to the normally frail damage a wizard deals. Nethermancy is the more control-focused version of Necromancy. They are are sort of... Eh. I would've enjoyed a more in-depth write-up of Necromancers instead of two different schools of mage magic. Nevertheless, Nethermancers might be better than they look, though I would never want to try one out.
In the next chapter, races are described. To start, they have revenants, which are pretty much the same as their earlier release.
Next up, Shades are introduced. They have a compelling backstory, plus they look cool, but when it comes to hard game strength, they come up sadly deficient. Though they have automatic training in Stealth, Darkvision, a good racial power, and their racial utility replacements are nice, their surge penalty is a severe hit. Despite the serious drawback, I think the race will gather fans because of it's sheer story-related awesomeness.
Finally, Vrylokas take the spotlight. They are easilly the best race in the book, with a speed of 7 (Yes, seven), a conditional bonus to Bluff (Passing as a human), necrotic resistance, a great racial power, great utility replacements, and a compelling backstory. With all this, the small surge penalty seems negligible.
The book then moves to Feats, Equipment, Paragon Paths, and Epic Destinies. Some of the Paths are great, like the Shadowthief, while others leave something to be desired. The Epic Destinies are all mediocre. The Feats also are nothing special, and the equipment is all "storyline equipment" that's basically useless in a combat situation (There are no magic items to be found). In short, though some good elements do exist in the last chapter, don't buy the book for them.
To sum it up, Heroes of Shadow is a wonderful D&D supplement, not neglecting to add story and solid game functions to the mix. Though there are weak points, the book should not be ignored. For all those who wanted to see shadow elements or just wanted fresh new powers and classes, this is the book for you.
Whew. That kind of got rambling. Anyway, I hope you all like it.
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