Races of Stone

Rating:
Summary: Not enough meat, and annoying revisionism
Review: First - the obvious. This book covers dwarves, gnomes, and goliaths (a new race). It includes a number of race-specific feats, class options and equipment. Overall, this section is good, and gives a number of different new options. The prestige classes were mostly well-designed, and will make a welcome option.

The Goliaths of course need to be added into a campaign world, as will many of the new races and variants listed in the "Other Races" chapter. The author actually predicted this, and gives several suggestions at the beginning of the chapter (well done!).

The feats chapter gives a number of interesting feats. Of particular note are some of the feats which blend racial elements with psionic elements. For instance Invest Armor lets a psionic improve his armor's defense. Good ideas in here.

The weak point of this book is the chapters on dwarves and gnomes. The section on dwarves fails to give as much of a proper "dwarven feel" as the 2nd Edition Complete Dwarves Handbook did. After reading the CDH, I immediately wanted to play a dwarf. I didn't get the same feeling from this. The chapter mentioned dwarven clans, but failed to really define their function within society except as a subgroup for a character to belong to. Finally, the section on religion ignored most of the well-established dwarven gods, and created a mostly new batch (or renamed a few). Some can be incorporated easily into the existing pantheon (Valkauna makes a great wife for Clangeddin). But why the name changes? Mya is an absurd name for the wife of Moradin! Finally, any discussion on the various dwarven subraces and their relations was totally missing. Where were the deep dwarves?

The section on gnomes is similar to the dwarves. Lots of information, but sadly lacking. The 3rd edition gnomes have had something of an identity crisis, and this book does work to bridge the gap to the illusionist-pranskters of old. But again there is little effort to capture the previous gnomish "feel", and instead the gnomes are subjected to some amount of revisionism. The deities are given the same treatment of the dwarves, and an entirely new divine-level conflict for gnomes is created. Finally, though I am a BIG fan of Ron Spencer's art, his gnomes (and for that matter, most of the 3rd edition gnomes) look like nothing more than short humans. Talk about identity crisis.

The goliaths are well-done, and create a race with almost a totemistic attitude. With their nomadism and primitive lifestyle, it should be easy to add them into existing campaigns.

Rating:
Summary: Not a critical miss, but pretty close...
Review: I accept that WotC is a business first and foremost, and that the bottom line is often the only line that's important, but at some point someone needs to step up and say enough is enough.

If there were no Races of Faerun, I could perhaps see a reason for this book. Even then, I'd be annoyed by its narrow focus, pathethic handful of races and padded selection of feats and prestige classes. If ever there was a book who's sole reason for existing appeared to be to soak more money from a loyal audience, this - and the other core 'Races of...' books forthcoming - is most definitely it.

Buy Races of Faerun instead and/or get a subscription to Dragon, but don't throw any money in this one's direction.

Rating:
Summary: Relief of Stone
Review: I've always liked dwarves. There've been a great many d20 racial splatbooks, few of which I've liked, and the only one I own is for dwarves. Now, WotC has decided to do its own racial splatbooks, and the first effort, detailing dwarves, gnomes, and a brand-new race, the goliaths, is actually a very good product.

One of the striking differences between Races of Stone and, say, the Planar Handbook, is that the primary focus of this product is what's known as "fluff"; i.e., information that is not strictly related to rules, but that details things like history, mannerisms, behavior, etc. For example, dwarves make a great variety of their clothes from root fibers! This has no real game effect, but it's nice information to have. There are sections for each race in this book, with the goliath section being a tad longer, since they're new to Races of Stone.

Speaking of goliaths, they're a primitive nomadic mountain-dwelling race; they're almost like evolved apes. They're very competitive, and quite strong. Their society is detailed in a lot of detail, and there are rules aspects that are non-obvious; despite having a Dex penalty, for example, they have a great fondness for ranged weapons.

Also included are variant races...chaos and whisper gnomes, dream dwarves, stonechildren, and feral garguns (who're relatives of the goliaths that live in even more unpleasant circumstances).

However, there is a very nice proportion of game mechanics goodness to be found (this is known colloquially as "crunch"). There are many new feats that are appropriate for the given races, new equipment (like exotic armors!), racial substitution levels (where you get an alternate class ability in place of a standard one, but only if you qualify by your race or other factors), and quite a few nifty prestige classes. There are a few spells and magic items (like forges that let non-casters create magic items, with some severe limitations), too. There are even adventure seeds that are more appropriate for the races of stone, as well.

Quite possibly the best new thing is that they don't assume you just have the Player's Handbook, as there is support for the Expanded Psionics Handbook, in the form of additional psionic feats and powers! This is very new, and very welcome, to boot.

I'm quite pleased with Races of Stone. It certainly washes out the bad taste of certain previous releases. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: The good just got better
Review: If you liked dwarves and gnomes, you will like them even more. If you did not like them - time to change your point of view. Also, if you looked for something new for your campaign, add goliaths to it. Barbaric, but noble in hearth, a new race to pepper your campaign with, to add a new option for self-taught races (barbarian, sorcerer, druid).

Races of stone offers you a detailed picture of the life and society of these three races, plenty of ideas to enhance your role-playing, and to have more unique characters. Discover the pantheons and the language of the races of stone, find out how to make use of your connection to stone using special feats, racial substitution levels and spells. Get a more unique character with a special prestige class.

Races of stone is perhaps the best accessory published for D&D 3.5 until this date - at least in my oppinion.


Rating:
Summary: pick and choose what you want
Review: This book was a tough sell for me. I had the older complete dwarf and the complete gnomes and halflings book and the color they helped create was very useful for me. First an overview of the book.

The first three chapters deal with dwarves, gnomes and a new race the goliaths. Each of these chapters deal with the societies of these various races and their mindset. For me there wasnt much new and the renaming of the dwarvish and gnomish dieties was why bother? The names were fine before. I did like the sections that created dwarvish and gnomish sounding names. I am lazy about creating names and this is a help.

The goliaths are a new race introduced in this book. They are a tribal race that enjoys competitiveness and are nomadic. I didnt see a use in my campaign for them.

The next chapters introduce some other races of stone like the chaos gnome who find randomness and probability fascinating. I didnt find anything particularly interesting about them but you may.

The prestige classes are next, again it is a matter of what you think you might want in your campaign. The one I liked was the Battlesmith, in conjuction with a cleric of the appropiate diety moradin for example would fit well in my campaign. The deep wardens were interesting also.

There is a section for new skills(some reinterpation of the skills) and new racial feats. I would probably use some these in creating backgrounds for the characters. There is a new weapon and armor section and a section on ancestrial weapons, again it could be interesting based on how you set your world.

There is a section on running a races of stone campaign with some suggestions. There are some new creatures included.

Overall this book is mixed. There are some parts of it that I will incorporate into my campaign, while there are other parts that I am wondering why I paid the money.

I would actually rate this as a 2.5. Buy only if you are really interested in the races of stone.

Rating:
Summary: Rock Bottom
Review: This is without a doubt the poorest addition to the Wizards of the Coast product lineup in quite some time. I wholeheartedly agree with other reviewers that suspect this book was developed with profits in mind, rather then to enhance the game.

The book has few interesting spots, and seems for the most part to be a quickly patched together version of all the material deemed (correctly) of being unworthy of inclusion in previous dwarf/gnome resource books.

A section on races follows up a mire of useless "crunch"-including renamed pantheons (why change names?) and vague cultural descriptions that include just enough detail to trick you into reading it.

The variant races range from the over powered Whisper Gnome, to the dare I say, slightly racist incarnation of the "Noble Savage"-called the Goliath. Neither brings anything to the game apart from unbalanced starting abilities and a plethora of mismatched (maybe even useless) feats. Similarly, the book's new armor, weapons and spells are okay, but don't pull this shambling mess back from the edge of Wasteville.

The few positive spots in the book include some interesting racial substitution levels for gnomes and dwarfs, a handful of interesting prestige classes, and an exploration of psionic possibilities. The latter is a much-needed change in the production style of Wizards of the Coast. By keeping psionics so heavily quarantined in their own books, I think the organization has greatly turned off the average GM from allowing the inclusion of such powers and abilities in their game. This was the first time I saw psionics explored in tandem to traditional D&D classes-an excellent step in integrating the two concepts more securely.

So in a nutshell, save your money for a book worthy of it and don't let Wizards of the Coast fleece you for $29.95


Rating:
Summary: Dwarves and Gnomes would be pleased...This one's a gem.
Review: While Races of Stone isn't quite on par with say Libris Mortis: The Book of the Undead or Frostburn, it is certainly one of WotC's best 2004 releases. Considering some of the dreck that saw print last year (Player's Guide to Faerun, Planar Handbook, Complete Divine) I would say this was one of my favourites. Of course, it basically boils down to whether or not you like Dwarves and Gnomes (I do) or have use for a new mountainous race called Goliaths (I can take them or leave them).

The breakdown of the three races in terms of culture, philosophy, religion, history and so forth can add a nice touch to your characters (or your campaigns), particularly if you're building only on what you have from the core books. The assortment of Prestige Classes and Feats is relatively good, but you'll probably come away with the sense that the Goliaths receive just a bit more attention than our traditional rocky friends.

There's been much debate over the newcomers in the Races series and most of it deserves saying. While I don't mind the Goliaths (in fact, I might use them in upcoming campaigns) I feel that their presence ate up space that could have given a bit more depth to the Dwarves and Gnomes. (This problem, which isn't quite so noticeable in this volume, returned with a vengance in the follow-up: Races of Destiny, in regards to the book-hogging Illumians.)

All said Races of Stone is, if you'll pardon the expression, solid as a rock. It gave me great hope for the other books in the series and, indeed, hope for the future of WotC's products. While I can't say that hope lingered long, I still feel Races of Stone is a strong addition to the D&D library and I'm glad it's on my shelf. If Races of the Wild is as good as this one I'll be most pleased.