Pyramid Review: Diablo II: Diablerie (for D&D)

Pyramid Review

Diablo II: Diablerie (for D&D)

Published by Wizards of the Coast

Written by JD Wiker

96 b & w pages; $19.95

So what does the Diablerie book bring to 3rd edition? In many ways, this is a complete update of Diablo II: The Awakening. For example, the five classes from Diablo II, done up for 2nd edition in The Awakening, are translated into 3rd edition stats. This time around, the classes have a much more unique feel to them. The Necromancer, shortchanged a bit in The Awakening, gets better hit dice and combat ability, as well as specific monsters when casting his golem spells. The Barbarian, still using a d12 for hit dice, is given a whole slew of abilities. Each class can advance up to 25th level, so those who wonder what the base attack bonuses and saving throw bonuses for the core classes, look at the corresponding class in Diablo.

Because third edition uses feats to accomplish powerful abilities, the Amazon and Paladin both lose their spell casting abilities; they instead get their abilities through magical groups. The groups correspond to the skill trees in the actual Diablo game with groups being broken up into six levels. For the Barbarian, some early levels are Axe Mastery, equal to weapon focus with axes, and Find Potion, which allows the barbarian to make a search check with a difficulty of 20 to find a healing potion. Higher level abilities include concentrate attack which gives the barbarian a bonus to hit his target, . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: February 16, 2001

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