Vecna's Book of Vile Darkness from Runic Press

Full transparency, I received a free copy of this supplement for review purposes. As usual I will rate this on four metrics: Utility, Quality, Presentation, and Price.

Utility: First of all, most of this supplement is for a subset of D&D players. It explores and expands options for undead and other monstrous PCs, and definitely has a bent toward the darker side of things. This book is for you if you want to play evil, or at best morally grey, much like it's 3.0 predecessor, the Book Of Vile Darkness by Monte Cook. That said, it does it, in many ways, better, and less grotesquely. I have to dock it half a point for being useful only to a certain subset of players...but man will it be useful to them. Lineages, subclasses, spells, feats, items, monsters, you name it. And for the Dm who wants to wield the dark against them? Even better.

Score: 4.5

Quality: Every bit of it is well written. The subclasses are balanced, the monsters hit their marks, the lineages are cool and flavorful. No complaints. They might not have done Ol' Vecna himself the way I would have, but they did a damn fine job.

Score: 5.0

Presentation: It's really, really pretty. Good art, good layout, well organized, no grammatical issues I could find. And no AI BS, which I appreciate.

Score: 5.0

Price: For 140 + pages of fine work including 13 new Subclasses , 6 Accursed Lineages, 4 Backgrounds, a slew of new Feats, 6 Vassals of Vecna, 12 Vile Curses, 30 new monsters, templates and archetypes for modifying monsters (love this bit, we've needed it), new spells and magic items . . . 20 bucks is a good deal, and I need to raise my own prices.

Score: 5.0

Overall Score: 4.85, which rounds back up to 5. Well done, Runic Press.

So yeah, buy it, over here: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/455194/Vecnas-Book-of-Vile-Darkness

I’ll be using it in my own campaigns, I assure you.