Races of the Wild (Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 Supplement) (Dungeons & Dragons): Amazon.co.uk: Skip Williams: Books

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Product Description

A new D&D sourcebook detailing various races that dwell in wilderness.

Races of the Wild™ provides Dungeons & Dragons® players with an in-depth look at races that live in the wildest areas of the D&D world. It explores the classic races of elves and halflings, including new rules, information for interaction, new spells, and new magic items attuned to each race. In addition to information on the two major races, a new race is introduced. There is expanded information on subraces, along with a wealth of cultural information and new prestige classes, feats, equipment, spells, and magic items.

AUTHOR BIO: Skip Williams is currently a freelance RPG game designer. He co-authored the core rulebooks for the Dungeons & Dragons RPG and wrote the adventure Deep Horizon™. His most recent credits include Draconomicon: The Book of Dragons™ and Book of Challenges™.

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4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another useful resource, 6 Mar 2005

By

Alex Fell (Rugby, Warwickshire, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Races of the Wild (Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 Supplement) (Dungeons & Dragons) (Hardcover)

This follows virtually the same format as Races of Stone: three chapters closely detailing three character races (elves, halflings and "raptorans", a sort of flying bird-like race); another section detailing other races in less detail (namely: catfolk (originally in the Miniatures Handbook), centaurs, gnolls and "killoren" - plant-like fey [didn't really grab me]); a chapter with prestige classes; a chapter on character options (new uses for skills, new feats, and racial substitution levels setting out alternatives to normal class rules for specific class and race combinations); a chapter with new equipment and magic; and a final section setting out wild races' NPC and demographics.

Again, like Races of Stone, this a good solid book with many virtues. It brings out aspects of the three main races nicely (the dilettantism and longevity of the elves and its effect on their culture, the generally larcenous and nomadic lifestyle of the halflings [definitely NOT Tolkien-esqe hobbits), the open society of the the raptorans). The raptorans are perhaps less compelling than the goliaths in Races of Stone, if only because there are already loads of bird-like races already (kenku, aarakora, avariel) but maybe that's just me. (On the other hand, I was flirting with the idea of a bird-like race for a campaign, and they are readily adaptable.)

The races dealt with in less detail are less compelling, but it does provide monster progression levels from 1st for the gnolls and centaurs, which are useful, and also example NPCs (the latter was not provided in Races of Stone).

The prestige classes are set out in considerable detail (with details on combat techniques, role-playing ideas, adventure hooks and so on - a new format that WoTC are using in all their recent publications [although not Races of Stone]). Some are rather good fun (like the Arcane Hierophant, an option for wizard/druids or sorcerer/druids, and the Champion of Corellon Larethian, a warrior prestige class that meshes heavy armour with mobility and elegance) although others are less compelling. (A slightly duff note is hit inadvertantly for a non-US reader when one prestige class is described as "the raptoran equivalent of the colonial Minutemen, the Texas Rangers and the 101st Airborne all rolled into one" - a little bit of American cultural imperialism there? Certainly pretty meaningless to me, although the context is clear enough.)

The character options section works quite well, much like in Races of Stone, and the equipment section is also quite good fun. This includes the various elven blade types (the lightblade, thinblade and courtblade - exotic weapons which work like shortswords, longswords and two-handed swords respectively, only with extra threat ranges and being amenable to use with Weapon Finesse) and the halfling war sling and skiprock (none of these new, but the first time in 3.5E).

Again, like Races of Stone, a good book (perhaps not quite as good, but still four stars) with a lot of worthwhile information that can be used straight or adapted as seems fitting.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Short review, 31 May 2009

By

Mrs. H. M. Lorimer "Little Ian" (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Races of the Wild (Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 Supplement) (Dungeons & Dragons) (Hardcover)

As a short review. Races of the wild talks about halflings (my favoute race) and elfs.
The book introduces an alphabet for elfs and halflings to help come up with names that have a meaning. For example Theakal, thea- proud and kal- cunning. The book describes in detail the traditions and other information about both of the races.
A new class raptoran is introduced and there are stats for creature from thge monster manuelle to be used as PCs (player characters) but they are very powerful compared to other races that are used making players with these races have an unfair advantage.
The book also as for most of the expansion-like books have knew feat, spells and prestege clases.

Thankyou Little Ian

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Amazon.com: 3.5 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars elves legacy/ halflings story, 16 Mar 2005

By MICHAEL BEAVERS - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Races of the Wild (Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 Supplement) (Dungeons & Dragons) (Hardcover)

Races of the Wild is the latest from WOC for their races line. It includes information and stuff about elves, halflings, raptorians and other races.

The book opens with the elves. It has the standard format of the other race books. It deals with lifestyle, philosophy, elves at war, culture and assorted other things. We get a section on the elvish dieties, some familiar some new. One of the new ones is named Vandra Gilmadrith, who is the daughter of Corellon Larethian. She is the wargodess for the elves.

The book has a section of elvish language and a naming chart which is nice. The elvish section seems to be a rewrite of the old elves handbook from the 2nd edition with a significant amount of new information.

The halfling section is organized in the same manner as the elves. The previous reviewer is correct in saying gypsy halflings which seems odd for most of the race. The pc halflings are the adventurer types while the race is a at home body.

There is one new diety for the halflings. Her name is Dallah thaun and is the diety of mystery. There is also a section of halfling phrases and a chart for creating names and places.

The raptorians are the new race introduced. My impression is that of quasi cat/elf with wings. The raptorians cant fly initally but can glide or have an assist in jumping. They have a nest culture. Every thing is from the nest but they spend significant amount of time away from it.

This race seemed to me kind of ho-hum. Earlier editions of D&D had a race called the winged folk who where elves with wings. This race seems very similar.

Next is a section on other races the catfolk(from the miniatures hand book I believe), as well as centaurs, gnolls, and another race the killoren, a race of fey. There is information to play these races as pcs also.

The prestige classes are next. Most of them are race related like the champion of Corellon, you need to be a elf. The one
I liked was the luckstealer, its for halflings but I will allow this for humans(I have a deity of luck in my campaign).

There are new feats, again mostly race related. There are tactical feats also. Tactical feats were introduced in the complete warrior. Again these feats are mostly race related.

A new list of gear for these races to use like the wildwood armor for the elves which has modifiers for max dex, armor check penalties and ac depending on the type of armor bought. There are new magic items like the swordbow which can be used as a bow or sword and if magical retains the same enchancement either way.

New spells and psionics are next with a new cleric domain for the raptorians.

The last part of the book covers campaigns and some beasts for the wild. There is an elvish hound (cooshee)rewritten from older editions.

In all this book was ok. I did like it a little better than the other two race books, but agree with the previous reviewer that it is primarily for completists and not necessary.

43 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gypsy Halflings and Chicken-Elves., 13 Mar 2005

By S. Donohue "Geekier than I want to be." - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Races of the Wild (Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 Supplement) (Dungeons & Dragons) (Hardcover)

In a strange coincidence two days after I received this tome, I wound up in a panel where Skip Williams explained that one reason none of the Player's Handbook races were +1 ECL was that they had to be familiar to the fans.

I'm not sure if that was the same Skip Williams who wrote about the gypsy halflings in this book or not. I do know I wasn't as happy with this one as I was with Races of Stone. The new race, the Raptorans, seems unimaginative and oddly named. They're flying elves, not hawkmen or dinosaurs as "raptor" might have led you to believe. Well, actually, most of them are gliding elves, with flight more like chickens than hawks except for their most powerful members.

If you are a completist/collector, like I am, then you'll buy this book. If you aren't, you should borrow it from the me in your group and use some of the interesting stuff while ignoring the rest (which, in my opinion, is most of it).

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A great book for beginners, just an other book for veterans, 29 Mar 2005

By Peter Craig "Pete" - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Races of the Wild (Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 Supplement) (Dungeons & Dragons) (Hardcover)

Races of the wild is the third book in the series which started with races of stone and continued with races of destiny.

It offers the readers the description of 3 races, the elves, the halflings and the raptorans. Most old gamers will not find too much interesting things in the description of elves and halflings, as most of these things were already covered in other books, but players and DMs new to the game will like it. Also, the presentation of halflings as a race always on the move is somehow too one dimensional.

Raptorans is a new race, but I think that it misses the enchantment of goliaths and illumians, and one can just feel that the ability to fly was downgraded into such a complicated set of rules just to eliminate the ECL for the race. This simply kills the feeling of reality (if one can talk about such things in a fantasy RPG).

The other parts of the book, like the prestige classes and feats are OK, but I hardly think the book is worth buying "just for the stats".

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