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Rating: 
Summary: A joy for DMs, off-limits for players
Review: First things first: this is a book designed for use by the DM, atleast for the most part. In the beginning of the book there's a couple of pages detailing a new Ravenloft-specific prestige class called the 'witch-hunter'. A fun to play class, especially for people who enjoy role-playing rather than roll-playing.The rest of the book describes a great variety of villains from various domains. The villains (mostly 'Darklords') are described in great detail: stats, background, current sketch, etc. are all covered. Special rules are also presented, such as how a 'Talon' (an elite troop of Vlad Drakov) differs from the ordinary soldier, and how a vampire can feed without exhausting his 'cattle'. The background stories are nicely done, and are very likely easy to follow even for DMs new to the Ravenloft setting. A DM screen comes with this book, which is quite obviously a very handy tool. Typically for a setting which focuses more on character interaction than on combat, two of the four panels of this screen present easy to look up DCs for all skills. Ever wonder what the PC must roll to pull a nasty splinter without causing more damage? Or how difficult it is to convince a vampire to let you go? With this screen it's all right in front of you. So why only four stars? Well, basically, there are some rather inexplicable typos...but these can be forgiven. What is a bit painful is the fact that the progression table for the witch-hunter prestige class is not complete. Due to a miss during layout, half of the table was cut. Not much of a problem if you have access to internet, really, as you can download the complete table at the sword & sorcery website (...). Besides this small flaw, it is worth the cash.
Rating: 
Summary: VERY GOOD BOOK
Review: good book. Never played Ravenloft before. One of my freinds had this book and after i read it i just had to have my own. I love the mystic world of Ravenloft. I especially like the monsters. i am a newbe and Ravenloft is The first DAD i ever played and i must say IF YOU ARE A NEWBE LIKE ME RAVENLOFT THIRD EDITION IS THE BEST DAD PRODUCT FOR YOU!!
Rating: 
Summary: Unrational Expectations?
Review: I must admit that perhaps I expected too much from this product. On the one hand, I really didn't think much about the advertised DM screen, but after looking it over I think that it was the major play aid (particularly the examples of typical dc's for skill checks). Maybe general combat modifiers would have been useful too. As for the book? The book itself is pretty thin, considering what WotC is charging for the non-Core books I am not too surprised; I just expect more from White Wolf. I am, also, baffled as to why the witch hunter wasn't in the first Ravenloft book. I don't see what advantage the DM has over player's not knowing about this prestige class. I guess what I was really looking forward to, though, was some more detail of particular realms. What I got was personal details on specific dread lords. Unfortunately the realms that struck my imagination most; Bluetspur and Forlorn were omitted. The fact that Forlorn is a core realm makes this doubly dismaying. Most of the dread lords are interesting (particularly Richemulot, Nova Vaasa, and Dementlieu's), but I am interested in Ravenloft because I am, frankly, too lazy to create my own campaign world. Therefore I am much more interested in the details (organizations, perhaps realm specific prestige classes, etc.) of the specific realms and was left looking for the promised DM tricks to give me adventure ideas. (I don't, particularly, see my players going up against any dread lords for some time.) If you, like me, are interested in D&D 3E because it seems a little more flexible and realistic than the original D&D (Yeah, I know its a fantasy game) but not the massive dice roling fest that is GURPS and you are intrigued by the ravenloft setting then this book will probably come in handy, eventually. But if you have all the old 2nd ed. D&D stuff you might be happier just translating it into 3E terms. Actually, possibly the best thing is to bypass this and get Denizen's in March and make up your own Dread Lords.
Rating:
Summary: Unrational Expectations?
Review: I must admit that perhaps I expected too much from this product. On the one hand, I really didn't think much about the advertised DM screen, but after looking it over I think that it was the major play aid (particularly the examples of typical dc's for skill checks). Maybe general combat modifiers would have been useful too. As for the book? The book itself is pretty thin, considering what WotC is charging for the non-Core books I am not too surprised; I just expect more from White Wolf. I am, also, baffled as to why the witch hunter wasn't in the first Ravenloft book. I don't see what advantage the DM has over player's not knowing about this prestige class. I guess what I was really looking forward to, though, was some more detail of particular realms. What I got was personal details on specific dread lords. Unfortunately the realms that struck my imagination most; Bluetspur and Forlorn were omitted. The fact that Forlorn is a core realm makes this doubly dismaying. Most of the dread lords are interesting (particularly Richemulot, Nova Vaasa, and Dementlieu's), but I am interested in Ravenloft because I am, frankly, too lazy to create my own campaign world. Therefore I am much more interested in the details (organizations, perhaps realm specific prestige classes, etc.) of the specific realms and was left looking for the promised DM tricks to give me adventure ideas. (I don't, particularly, see my players going up against any dread lords for some time.) If you, like me, are interested in D&D 3E because it seems a little more flexible and realistic than the original D&D (Yeah, I know its a fantasy game) but not the massive dice roling fest that is GURPS and you are intrigued by the ravenloft setting then this book will probably come in handy, eventually. But if you have all the old 2nd ed. D&D stuff you might be happier just translating it into 3E terms. Actually, possibly the best thing is to bypass this and get Denizen's in March and make up your own Dread Lords.
Rating:
Summary: not bad
Review: I really liked the d20 Ravenloft book, but this one fell short. It only covers about half of the lords and includes a prestige class that should have been in the first book. Here, the class just takes up space that could have been better used with more darklords. Or, better yet, they could have made the book bigger to include more of the lords. I would have gladly paid more for a more complete work. On a positive note, the updated stats for the lords are useful and necessary for a Ravenloft game. And we do get new artwork for Azalin and Azrael . . .
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat disappointing . . .
Review: I really liked the d20 Ravenloft book, but this one fell short. It only covers about half of the lords and includes a prestige class that should have been in the first book. Here, the class just takes up space that could have been better used with more darklords. Or, better yet, they could have made the book bigger to include more of the lords. I would have gladly paid more for a more complete work. On a positive note, the updated stats for the lords are useful and necessary for a Ravenloft game. And we do get new artwork for Azalin and Azrael . . .
Rating:
Summary: Informative; But Better Can Be Obtained
Review: I've had an ongoing Ravenloft Campaign now for over 10 years. We started with the old Realm of Terror boxed set for AD&D when it came out in 1990. When 3rd edition came out, we decided to look at the Ravenloft twist and what they had done with it. The core book was decent, yet it left out the darklords. Upon reading through the book, we found out that we would need to purchase this book to get information on those darklords. We never did buy the book. After all the reviews we read it doesn't appear to be money well spent, more like money wasted. To hear that not all the darklords are even described is disheartening, as that was the only reason we looked to buy this book. For those of you that are simply looking for information on the darklords, this product wouldn't be worth it. Not enough of them are described. In the transformation from 2nd ed. to 3rd ed., the basic lands all but stayed the same. Only one or two from the Realm of Terror failed to reappear in 3rd edition. And those that did make the transformation still have the same basic lords. There are a few new ones that "took over", and if they're depicted then it might be worth it. But on the whole, I'd advise something more. If you can get your hands on the old Realm of Terror boxed set, do so. It has the description and personalities of the darklords. Of course, Realm of Terror is 2nd ed, so you'd have to do a little of your own work to transfer the darklords stats into 3rd edition playability. And if you can get your hands on the 2nd ed module, "When Black Roses Bloom", you'd also find stats for Azreal in that adventure packet. Just some alternatives, else you'd have to get this thin product.
Rating:
Summary: not bad
Review: In all honesty I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book, because the book bills it as "nasty tricks to use on your players" when it really should have been... "The semi-complete list of darklords." I have no idea why the witch-hunter prestige class was in this book, as it was completely out of place, but the rest of the book was actually very well done, with a map (albeit small) showing which domains were controlled by which darklord and then a listing of the darklords. These listings make up the meat of the book and are definitely worth the price of admission for those who do not have the older 2nd edition info. They tell you the history, personality, looks, powers, current position, and weaknesses of the darklords. Every single entry was done to my satisfaction and merited 5 stars for that information alone. The reason the last star dropped off is that the information wasn't complete. They show you the list of all the darklords in Ravenloft and then give you info on only half of them. I would have paid for another hardcover overpriced S&S book if it had just listed them all. The only other issue I have with the book is the stats on the darklords themselves. As a DM I have been running Forgotten Realms campaigns for many years now and have become accustomed to incredibly powerful NPC characters that the PCs are in mortal fear of. No player is going to bum rush Elminster, even if he is wielding a +5 sword. Forgotten realms contains epic level characters using the WotC Epic Level handbook to full effect. The Secrets of the Dread Realms lists Azalin as an 18th level lich necromancer. Perhaps I am just jaded from my other campaigns, but isn't that a tad weak? Why didn't they bump up the power level of the darklords to reflect the new source material from WotC? In any case, it was well worth the money I spent, but it could have been much better. The DM shield was actually quite handy as well, and definitely more appropriate for a Ravenloft campaign.
Rating:
Summary: not bad
Review: In all honesty I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book, because the book bills it as "nasty tricks to use on your players" when it really should have been... "The semi-complete list of darklords." I have no idea why the witch-hunter prestige class was in this book, as it was completely out of place, but the rest of the book was actually very well done, with a map (albeit small) showing which domains were controlled by which darklord and then a listing of the darklords. These listings make up the meat of the book and are definitely worth the price of admission for those who do not have the older 2nd edition info. They tell you the history, personality, looks, powers, current position, and weaknesses of the darklords. Every single entry was done to my satisfaction and merited 5 stars for that information alone. The reason the last star dropped off is that the information wasn't complete. They show you the list of all the darklords in Ravenloft and then give you info on only half of them. I would have paid for another hardcover overpriced S&S book if it had just listed them all. The only other issue I have with the book is the stats on the darklords themselves. As a DM I have been running Forgotten Realms campaigns for many years now and have become accustomed to incredibly powerful NPC characters that the PCs are in mortal fear of. No player is going to bum rush Elminster, even if he is wielding a +5 sword. Forgotten realms contains epic level characters using the WotC Epic Level handbook to full effect. The Secrets of the Dread Realms lists Azalin as an 18th level lich necromancer. Perhaps I am just jaded from my other campaigns, but isn't that a tad weak? Why didn't they bump up the power level of the darklords to reflect the new source material from WotC? In any case, it was well worth the money I spent, but it could have been much better. The DM shield was actually quite handy as well, and definitely more appropriate for a Ravenloft campaign.
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