Post originally by Matt Drake at 2005-06-20 06:17:43
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To be honest, I didn't even know about the Lords of Darkness book until you mentioned it and I looked it up at the Wizards website. I don't know how many feats/skills/spells/other character crunch is in that book. There may be a ton, I don't know. But there is a ton in Champions of Ruin.

Also, the bad guys here are specific to the Realms. They could be extracted if you change some names, but they are intended to be Realms bad guys. The Zhentarim, for example, are not generic evil baddies. Lords of Darkness is not a Realms-specific product.

The Lords of Darkness book is primarily about aberrations. Regular old human villains are not the focus. They're not enitrely in Champions of Ruin, either, but the book does provide lots of ways to make a regular, run-of-the-mill mortal villain who can plague the PCs (or be the PCs) on a regular basis.

Sure, there are some new bad guys in Lords of Darkness, and some new bad guys in Champions of Ruin. But half of Champions of Ruin is character options, with the second half all about bad guys who could be allied with other bad guys. Lords of Darkness is ALL about bad guys, and different bad guys at that.

There is almost no overlap. These books may both have a similar focus - the dark side - but their focus and content are not the same. I hate book churn as much as anyone else, but it sounds to me like you might just be wanting to put Wizards in the chapter on 'Evil Organizations.' They like to make money - like most companies - and they may have overcharged for this book a little, but they're not villains.

Matt Drake