Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves is Bad Axe Games first book, and is also the first in their line of race books. This book is rather small being only 62 pages and it is not a full size book. However the price is only about ten dollars American and it is packed inside. The cover is one of the coolest covers I?ve seen. It?s very simple, yet really says Dwarf. It has a symbol of an Anvil and Hammer on it. The tones are very earthy and title and author?s name are seamlessly part of the cover. The art inside is also very fitting. It adds to the text and is not overbearing.

There are two basic points that need to be said before getting into the specifics. The first is that this book is filled with rules and very little narrative. It has feats, new uses for old skills, prestige classes, but only a little on dwarven culture and other extra information. Some people prefer the ?crunch? to the ?fluff?. Second, this options presented in this book are very well in line with everything in the core rules. There are no odd new rules, different presentations of the dwarven people, or sub races.

The book starts with a two-page introduction. It?s very basic and reiterates what one expects of dwarves. From there we go directly to the feats. There are new fighter feats as well as feats recommended only for dwarves. There are many new combat feats like Giant Killer and Hammer Mastery. The first one negates reach of some creatures, the other grants a bonus to attack with all Hammer weapons. There are a few other types like Sturdy Back that reduces encumbrance. All the feats seem useful and balanced. Next we get into fighting styles. These are four styles: Single Weapon, Weapon and Shield, Two Handed Style, and Two Weapon Style. Each has certain feat requirements and if all the requirements are meet, one automatically gets and additional bonus when using this style. Then each style also has a specialization that can only be taken as a feat for characters with at least four levels in fighter. The bonuses received are nice, but not overpowering. Next the book goes into dwarven runes. These are simple additions that can be added to any weapon, armor, or item. The runes are a nice, simple way to add a bit of dwarven mystery to items.

Next the book covers some new uses for old skills, although it?s mostly new dwarven options for crafting. There are many new traits that can be built into weapons and armor. These new options are easily presented here and all the craft DCs and price included. I really like this section as it shows the superior quality that dwarven items can have.

The real meat of the book are the prestige classes. This is well over half the book. There are ten prestige classes, and each one is aimed towards a multi class fighter. A fighter with levels in any of the other ten core classes will find a prestige class in here that fits. Each prestige class shows their role in the dwarven society and their role in an adventuring party. I really liked that that information was added to all the classes. It makes them easy to use as NPCs to show the diversity of a Dwarven civilization. All of the prestige classes seem pretty well balanced and interesting.

The book ends with a couple of pages on Dwarven Society. Over all it?s a good little book. It really presents many options for the dwarven character, but I feel it centers too much on the fighter. As a first product it is well done and void of the usual mistakes in editing and organization one tends to see. And lastly, I have to comment on the clever name of the company: Bad Axe Games. I think it?s the coolest sounding company out there.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

(REVIEW ORIGINALLY POSTED TO ENWORLD.ORG JULY 10, 2002 AND MAY CONTAIN OUT-OF-DATE INFORMATION)

Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves (hereafter simply DWARVES) is Bad Axe Games' first foray into the d20 marketplace.

Percent of OGC: Roughly 50% (see below)

First Impressions: DWARVES is another niche book - tightly focused; though I must admit it was not what I expected. 40 pages are given over to prestige classes - 4 pages per class. By my count, that means fully 2/3 of the book is prestige classes. I didn't expect the book to be so prestige-class heavy. But on going back and reading the "foreword" it is clear that this is in fact what DWARVES is meant to do - spend most of its time dealing with archetypical dwarven roles as reflected in the "favored class" of dwarves - fighter. Okay, fair enough... I need to change my expectations a bit - this book is meant to explore "dwarves through fighter since their favored class is fighter." A refreshing look at the almost forgotten concept of favored classes and what implications that will have on dwarven society (or is that the other way round?).

Initial Annoyances: The book wasn't what I expected. While that isn't necessarily bad, it WAS annoying. The rules for Runes were a bit hard to grasp on first read - it's easy to miss "how to activate runes" (though the second time around I got them). I also felt a little disappointed at the new Craft rules - mostly because I didn't feel there were enough options presented... I got to the end of the section and thought, "aw, is that it? I want more..."

Chapter Breakdown:

Chapter 1 deals with the "generic" aspects of dwarves. Gives a quick (really quick) overview of society, attitudes, and culture. Nothing new and exciting for RPG veterans here, but does help you get your "dwarf mindset" in gear before diving in to the meatier stuff. It's only two pages long and although much of it is fluff, it doesn't detract from the rest of the book in either tone or quantity. I was rather indifferent about this chapter, but hey, I've been playing dwarves for 20-odd years now, so I guess anything that gives me "basics of dwarven society" will be boring to me. Chapter 1 is closed content.

Chapter 2 can be handled in four parts: Feats, Fighting Styles, Runes, and Old Uses for New Skills (read: "new stuff to do with the Craft skill"). Most of the Feats are are fighter-oriented and usable for combat. Nothing too new and exciting here, except for the Style Specialization options (nice segue into Fighting Styles, eh?). Reminiscent of the old Complete Book of Fighters, this gives game mechanic backup to the player who wants to specialize in "weapon and shield" or "single weapon" or "two-handed weapon" or "two-weapon style." Nothing truly overpowering here - spend a Feat for a +1 bonus or mitigate a penalty by -2. This does a good job of giving "mechanical backup" to role-playing choices without creating uber-munchkins. Excellent job there. Runic Feats, to the complaint of some, seem a bit underpowered - runes can't even be used without a Feat, and with dwarves' Charisma penalty, odds are that you won't get a ton of utility from, say, a rune that lets you use Cleave for a number of rounds per day equal to your Charisma bonus. Runes, however, have one saving grace - they don't have other prereqs. That means that a 10 Str dwarf can be Cleaving opponents. Also, you can channel turning uses into Runes - also makes sense, since one presumes that dwarves usually are busy fighting goblins and not zombies. A nice touch. I still think Runes are slightly underpowered, but that's fine with me... I don't need "escalation" where every new book gives PCs bigger and badder and better powers. Finally, the Craft section details a few new mundane options for armor and shields. Loved everything about this but the length - I could have used another four pages or so of this kind of thing. This was, for me, the highlight of DWARVES. Chapter 2 is all Open Game Content. :)

Chapter 3 is the "Chapter of the Prestige Classes." These are set up with 2 pages of "flavor text" and illustrations (not OGC) and 2 pages detailing the class and its abilities (OGC). A nice way to split the OGC and non-OGC bits 50/50. I felt that most of the PrCs are mechanically sound, if not always inspiring. The idea of a PrC for each multiclass archetype is refreshing, though - and they follow the idea that a PrC should not be categorically better than a standard class - just more specialized (better in some certain situations, worse in others). The PrCs are solid additions to a dwarven culture without too much ridiculousness. Highlights are the Tunnel Fighter (who gets flanking benefits when his opponent is near a wall) and the Battle Rager (whose "Against the Odds" ability worries me as possibly overpowered but I haven't playtested it yet). Chapter 3 is 50% OGC, as noted above - the "flavor text" is not, but all the "crunchy bits" are.

Chapter 4 is a 2-page wrap-up of dwarven roleplaying. It presents seven (IIRC) dwarven "virtues" - which, when taken to extremes, provide the quintessential stereotype of stoic, greedy, grumpy dwarves. Nothing too exciting here for anyone but a first-time dwarf. Chatper 4 is closed content.

PRESENTATION: The interior artwork didn't blow me away, but struck me as better than most of the artwork I've seen of late. Nice and clean, slightly Elmore-esque. Style points here for not trying too hard, but giving us quality material. The cover, by contrast, is BEAUTIFUL in its simplicity. Extra bonus points for the OGC delineation method - there is a "bar" at the bottom of each page that either does or does not contain the phrase "this page is Open Content" - all text (not pictures) on a page are OGC when this appears and they did a great job of layout so that things never felt "forced" and I didn't get "spillover" of fluff into the OGC crunchy bits. Definitely worthy of emulation for other publishers.

Conclusion: Not quite what I expected, but a pleasant surprise. Most of the book was "solid but not overwhelming." When I consider that the pages are half the size of the Quintessential X series, that tells me that this book is actually only 1/4 the size of the Quintessential X series. I felt that, on the whole, I got almost as much from DWARVES as I do from the Quintessential X series - because DWARVES seems more tightly focused (this is usually a GOOD thing when doing splatbooks). I can't justify calling it "great," since only the Craft rules struck me as really neat, though - very very solid, but little in the way of "WOW" factor. That I didn't get much of a "wow" keeps it from a "Superb" rating and instead earns it a "Good" rating (4/5); while its technical merits (layout, artwork, and rules adherence) are easily worthy of a 5/5, I felt the "idea" merits and "wow" factor were only in the 3/5 range - YMMV. The book certainly has no glaring weaknesses unless you hate Prestige Classes (and even if you do hate them, I urge you to look at the way they handled Prestige Classes - it's definitely a nice spin to see "archetypes" as PrC's instead of "neat bundles of powers"), and I am looking forward to Bad Axe Games' next release. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

I did not like this book at all. I have been running dwarves for many years. This one did not help me in any way.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Poor<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

If you haven't seen the Heroes of High Favor Series, I suggest you buy this PDF version to see what you've been missing. Each book presents detailed information on culture and includes many Prestige Classes that compliment what is put forth about the race in question and gives players and DMs many new ideas to spice up what they thought were routine peoples.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

These Heroes of High Favor (HoHF) books from Bad Axe Games are one of the best series of d20 books I've read -- each book is written with self-styled "grit" and formed around a quite elegant idea; take a race and build around its favored class. Then provide tons of cool source material and prestige classes that represent the various combinations you could get to from that point. I've got the whole set of these books, but jumped on the Bad Axe bandwagon after Dwarves went out of print. So, I'm super pumped that they re-released it as a PDF.

The book was written for the 3E edition of D&D, you should be able to easily use this stuff in your v3.5 campaign. I know I will.

Geoff Kushnick Director of Game Design Eldersygn Press Home of the SkillCraft Series http://www.eldersygn.com

<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: I don't think you'll find a better book for this price! Heck, I would've paid $10 for it.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: This applies to the whole series of HoHF, not just Dwarves...this is possibly the most near-perfect (in my mind) series of books for d20 that I've read.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>